
Qass 9K\\ih 

Book ^£l. 






CONGR ATUL ATIO N ^ 






(joiden Nuggets 

OK ' 



f9/^ 



Beautiful Thoughts 

• — in Prose and Verse 



Carefully Chosen from the 
Literature of the World 



Comprising the " Best Things" 
from the Best Authors 






Arrangedjn pQ^p Parts 



Typifying the Four Seasons in 
the Life of Man 

Childhood lir™ - i cct lo 

Youth 
Manhood 

nd 

Old Age 




e>. 



X COMPILED BY 

; REV. J. THOMAS ZIEGLER, A. M 



P. W. ZIEGLER A: CO., 

PHII^DElvPHlA AND CHICAOa 



Copyright, 1895, 

by 

J. Thomas Ziegler. 




IR^OM .helpless 
babe 
In mother's arms. 
To little child 

Each new thing 
charms'; 
From child to maid 
At school aad 
play— 
With scarce a care 
Life ebbs away. 

Erom, maid tltat 
dreams 

Of love that's true, 
To wife that goes 

Where all is new ; 
From, wife to mother, 

Grave and gay, 
'Mid. joys and careS 

Life ebbs away. 



^WOpmkyfeet, 
'^ Wee cliubby 

toes, 
A'mouth.as. sweet 

As'any.rose, 
Hat dimpled, chee"kt 
Twin eyes olgrey 
That seem, to speak 
la helpless way. 

Without tne power 

To tell its' need. 
Which, every hour, 

True love must 
heed ', 
^Mid.smiles and tears, 

And many a 
mood— 
So pass the years 

Of babyhood. 



%^ ONG days cf sun , 
^^ i>hott nights of 

'grief; 
Ko fear of woes 

Beyond^relief.; 
In home of wealth 

Orpoorest cot, 
Life's childhood 
seems 

A'happy'lot. 

Foe thought is rapt 

In present things, 
Centred onfall 

That each day 
brings. 
A bright spring life 

At school. and play^ 
So passes by 

Glad childhaod's 
day. 







rose 

Of grace most rare. 
That but half shows 

Its petals lair. 
And blushes ted 

The sua to greet : 
A picture thi^ 

Of maidexLSweet. 

O rose of June. 

So fair and shy. 
Too soon, too soon 

Love passes by 
And in an hour 

A.11 unforeseen, 
You own his' power — 

A captive queen ! 




QUEENLY 
sway, 
Silent but strong ; 
A Avondrous power 
Enduring long — 
A power with might, 

AH might above 
To bind a heart 
J n. bonds of love. 

A solace true 

In darkest day ; 
A joyous heart 

When life is gay ; 
A comforter 

In pain or stride— 
God's precious gift : 

A perfect wife. 




MOTHERHOOD. 

^^ LIFE that's full ^- 
^""^ Of little cares, 
And doubts and /ears 

No other shares j 
And yet a life 
That's glad .Vith 
good — 
The strong pure joy 
Of motherhood 

A.1)right "blue sky . 

Of happiness. 
Clouded at times 

Or more or less ; 
A life that's full 

Of power for good : 
This is the life 

Of motherhood, 

G. .Weatherly, 




Take heed how ye offend one of these little ones; for I say unto you thei/ 
angels do always behold the face of my Father. 

— Jesus Christ. 



The childhood shows the man, 
As morning shows the day. 



-John Hilton. 



A house is never perfectly furnished for enjoyment unless there is a child in 
i, rising three years old, and a kitten rising three weeks. 

— Robert Southey. 

Sweet childish davs, that were as lone: 
As twenty days are now. 

— Wm. Wordsworth. 




Better to be driven out from among men than to be disliked of children. 

—R H. Dana. 



Of all the joys that brighten suffering earth, 
What joy is welcomed like a new-born child ? 



-Mrs. Norton. 



Childhood has no forebodings; but then it is soothed by no memories of out- 
lived sorrow— (?eorr7e Eliot. 



They are idols of hearts and of households; 
They are angels of God in disguise. 



C. II. Dickinson. 



Oh, banish the tears of children ! Continual rains upon the blossoms are hurtful. 

— Jean Paul Richter. 

In the man whose childhood has known caresses, there is always a fibre of 
memory which can be touched to gentle issue. —George. Eliot. 

4 








H, little child! 

Stretched on thy mother's knees, ^vith steadfast gaze 
And innocent aspect mild, 
Yiewing this novel scene in mnte amaze, 
Following the moving light, thy mother's smile, 

And storing up the while 
New precious knowledge till thou com'st to be 
Sage it may be, or clown — 
Soaring or sinking down, 
To topmost heights of weal or depths of misery; 
How shall I dare to mark thy innocent look, 



And write, as in a book, 

Thy infinite possibilities of life ; 

What fate awaits thee in the coming strife, 

What joys, what triumphs in the growing years, 

What depths of woe and tears ? 

I see thee lie 
Safe in thy silken cradle, sunk in down, 
Within thy father's palace-chambers fair; 
Thy guarded slumbers breathing tempered air; 
The soft eyes, full of yearning, watching by; 
Caressing arms waiting thy waking cry; 
A.11 luxury and state which can assuage 
Life's painful herita^; 
The prayers of a people swell for thee 
Up to the careless skies which cover all. 
And yet it may be thine to fall 
Far from thy loved and native land, 
And end thy imperfect, innocent life-tale here, 
Forsaken on a savage desert strand, 
Pierced tUro' and thro' by some barbarian spear. 



I see thy tiny face 

Pale, worn with hunger, and large hollow eyes, 

Upon the frozen way-side laid 

Stiffening in thy dead mother's cold embrace 

I hear thy piteous cries 

When the sot flings thee down with limbs that 

bleed- 
Flings thee, and takes no heed ; 

Wake, helpless, born to misery, girt round 

With vice and sin and shame, in sight and 
sound. 

Poor life, foredoomed, already sunk and lost; 

Too often sent to tread the ways of death 

With childish failing breath; 

Yet ofttimes holding power 

To bloom, a virgin flower, 

Upon the untrodden heights closed to the mul- 
titude, . 

Among the wise and good. 

Or with brown face thou comest and limb, 

Naked, on the warm soil that bears the palm, 



THE ODE OF INFANCY. 



Or haply the young heir of all the dim 

And half-forgotten realms whose ruins stand 

Sown lion-haunted on the deathlike calm 

Which wraps the Egyptian or Assyrian sand 

Beared 'midst the dust of empires ; or art now 

As through all history thou wert, the child 

Of savage parents, rude and wild, 

Springing and falling, born to eat and breed 

And wither under burning skies a weed, 

'Midst poison fangs and death and cruel men 

With hearts that ape the tigers ; or art born 

In the old, old empire, which hath long outworn 

God and the hopes of man, and yet coheres, 

Propped by its own far-reaching bulk, as when 

It did emerge from savagery and grew, 

Oh, child ! as yet may you, 

To worldly strength, and knowledge, and dead lore 

Of wisdom fled before, 

And dull content, and soulless hopes and fears. 

Wherever thou mayest be. 

To me thou art wonderful and strange to see — 

Busied with trifles, rapt with simple toys. 

As men with graver joys. 

I hear ihy lisping accents slowly reach 

The miracle of speech ; 

I mark thy innocent smile ; 

I treasure up each baby wile 

Which smooths the brow of thought, the heart 

of care. 
Thou royal scion, born to be the heir 
Of all the unrecorded days, since first 
Man rose to his full being, once blest, and then 

accurst ! 
In weal and woe and ill 

Thou art a miracle still. 

From snow-bound hut to equatorial strand, 

Above thee still regarding angels stand ; 

Whilst thy brief life-tale passes like a dream 

Across Creation's glass. 

Dark powers of ill press thee on either side, 

As now thy swift years pass, 

Revealing on thy young soul's tablets white 

The eternal characters of Right ; 

Or sometimes with the growing years grown strong 

The unhallowed signs of wrong. 

Oh, little child ! thou bringest with thee still, 

As Moses, parting from the fiery hill, 

Some dim reflection in thine eyes, 

Some sense of Godhead, some indefinite wonder 

As of one drifted here unwillingly ; 

Who knows no speech of ours, and yet doth keep 

Some dumb remembrance of a gracious home 

Which lights his waking hours and fills his sleep 



With precious visions which unbidden come ; 
Some golden link which nought of earth can 

sunder. 
Some glimpse of a more glorious land and sea I 

Oh, precious vision fleeting past ! 
Oh, age too fair to last ! 
For soon new gifts and powers are thine, 
And growing springs and summers bring 
Boyhood or girlhood hastening, * 

And nerve the agile limb, and teach. 
With the new gift of speech, 
The wonders that stand round on every side, 
And Life's imperial portals opening gradually 
wide. 

— ^ xO-^^C-O- ^— 

OUR BABY. 

^ ID you ever see our 

baby? 

Little Tot ; 

"Vith her eyes so 

sparkling bright, 

ind her skin so lily 

white, 
Lips and cheeks of 
rosy light — 
Tell you what, 
"^ She is just the sweet- 
est baby 
In the lot. 
Ah ! she is our only darling. 

And to me 
All her little ways are witty ; 
And when she sings her little ditty, 
Every word is just as pretty 

As can be — 
Not another in the city 
Sweet as she. 

You don't think so — never saw her. 

Wish you could 
See her with her playthings clattering, 
Hear her little tongue a chattering; 
Little dancing feet come pattering — 

Think you would 
Love her just as w^ell as I do, 

If you could ! 

Every grandma's only darling, 

I suppose. 
Is as sweet and bright a blossom. 
Is a treasure to her bosom. 
Is as cheering and endearing 

As my rose. 
Heavenly Father, spare them to us 

Till life's close. —Mrs. Gage, 








Th© Two Year Oi.©, 

OW deeply winniDg are the Avays 
Of Children in their Infant days ! 
The eye that scans the speaker through; 
Th' inquiry if " the tale be true ? " 
The dumb show, where the word oft fails, 
Yet quite as much as speech avails ; 
The pressure of the soft fond cheek, 
That doth such confidence bespeak ; 
How truly we may here behold 
The Infant mind of ^' two year old ! '' 

In some, whilst still upon the knee, 
The spirit struggles to be free ; 
jNIark too the temper's ruffled skein, 
As yet held but by snaffle rein ; 
The energy that sj^eaks command, 
The action done as soon as planned ; 
The '' tug of war " in every way 
That may ensm-e the mastery ; 
And this, perhaps Ave may be told, 
Is unregenerate ^^two year old.'' 

O mothers ! watch with trembling joy 
The dawning of your Infant boy ; 
The mind that's formed without a plan, 
Will never make a " perfect man ; " 
Think not that coming years will swell 
The stock which is not grafted well ; 
The sapling which receives no care 
Is little better than a tare : 
Then soon as buds of ill unfold. 
Suppress them in your " tAvo year old." 



■*-^^~^^«- 



Tmm mM.mm 



AKED on parents' knees a new-born child, f 
AVeeping thou sat'st Avhen all around thee smiled 



mm 

*^ 4 4 So live, that, sinking to thy last long sleep. 



Thou then may'st smile while all around thee weep. 

— From the Sanscrit of Calidasa hy Sir Wiij.iam Joura. 
7 




A SPRING SNOW STORM 



BY MARY A, ?. ATHBURY. 



*-- 



iHERE'S a flutter of wings in the cherry 
^ trees, 

And a merrier sound than the hum 
of bees — 
The winds are awake — the winds of May — 
And this is the hour and this is the way 
The four winds play : 



They toss the blossomy boughs in air; 
They sift the snow of the petals fair 
Into the sunshine; and then away 
On the topmost branches they perch and sa/y 
"Isn't this ga7jf" 



8 




Lteisgis^ifcfflsifcBiffl 



HjHioi of 1 



ftij «*;! m 9 



A. babe in a house Is a well-spring of pleasure, a messenger of ])eace and love ; 
\. resting-place for innocence on earth ; a link between angels and men ; 
Yet is it a talent of trust, a loan to be rendered back with interest; 
A delight, but redolent of care ; honey sweet, but lacking not the bitter j 

9 



lyFLUEXCE OF EARLY TBAIXIXG. 

For character growetli dav by clay, and all things aid it in unfolding, 

And the bent unto good or evil may be given in the hours of infancy. 

Scratch the green rind of a sapling, or wantonly twist it in the soil, 

The seared and crooked oak will tell of thee for centm^ies to come ; 

Even so mayest thou guide the mind to good, or lead it to the marrings of e\dl, 

For disposition is builded up by the fashioning of first impressions ; 

^Yherefore, though the voice of Instruction waiteth for the ear of Eeason, 

Yet with his mother's milk the young child drinketh Education. 

Patience is the first great lesson ; he may learn it at the breast ; 

And the habit of obedience and trust may be grafted on his mind in the cradle : 

Hold the little hands in prayer, teach the weak knees their kneeling ; 

Let him see thee speaking to thy God ; he will not forget it afterwards ; 

When old and gray will he feelingly remember a mother's tender piet^', 

And the touching recollection of her prayers shall arrest the strong man in his sin. 

M. F. TuppEE, 



CHILDREN. 

HE smallest are 
near to God, as the 
smallest planets are 
nearest the sun. 
AVere I only for a 
time almighty and 
powerful, I would 
create a little world 
especially for my- 
self, and suspend 
it under the mild- 
est sun, a world where I won Id have 
nothing but lovely little children, and 
these little things I would never suffer to 
grow up, but only to play eternally. If a 
seraph were worthy of heaven, or his 
golden pinions drooped, I would send him 
to dwell for a while in my infant world, 
and no angel, so long as he saw their inno- 
cence, could lose his own. 

Jean Paul PacHTEE. 




THE CHILD-POET. 

OU have watched a child playing, in 
those wondrons years when belief 
1 is not bound to the eyes and ears, 
^ and vision divine is so clear and 
unmarred, that each baker of pies in the 
dirt is a bard ! Give a knife and a shingle, 
he fits out a fleet, and, on that little mud- 
puddle over the street, his invention, in 
purest good faith, Avill make sail roimd the 
globe with a puff of his breath for a gale, 
T^ill visit, in barely ten minutes, all climes, 
and find Xorth-western passages hundreds 
of times. Or, suppose the young poet fresh 
stored with delights from that Bible of 
childhood, the Arabian ]S'ights, he will turn 
to a crony and cry, " Jack, let's play that I 
am a Genius !" Jacky straight^vay makes 
Aladdin's lamp out of a stone, and for^ 
hours they enjoy each his own supernatural 
j^owers. 

James Russell Lowell. 



WOMAN'S CROWN. 

^^ E is sleeping — brown and silken 
'%0- Lie the lashes long and meek, 
J* Like caressing clinging shadows 
J On his plump and j^eachy cheek ; 



-y^-- 



And I bend above him weeping 
Thankful tears— oh, undefiled ! 

For a woman's crown of glory, 
For the blessina: of a child ! 



10 



WHEN WE WERE CHILDREN 



HAVE you forgotten, little wife, 
Our far-off childhood's golden life? 
Our sjilendid castles on the sands, 
The boat I made with my own hands, 



The dreams we had ! the songs we made ! 
The sunshine! and the woven shade! 
The tears of many a sad good-bye, 
When we were parted, you and I ! 




The rain that caught us in the wood, 
The cakes we had when we were good. 
The doll I broke and made you cry, 
When we Avere children, you and I! 

Have you forgotten, little wifc^ 

The dawning of that other life? 

The strange new light the whole world wore, 

When life love's perfect blossom bore ! 



Ah, nay ! your loving heart, I know, 

Remembers still the long-ago; 

It is the light of childhood's days 

Tliat shines through all your winning ways. 

Crod grant we ne'er forget our youth, 
Its innocence, and faith, and truth. 
The smiles, the tears, and hopes gone by. 
AVhen we were children, you ajid I. 

FREDERICK E. WliATlIERLY. 



u 




^■'zyhn^^ — 9 



■^-/5^'a/^^ 



GATES AJAR 



IM. 



(® 



h M* 



/TAZING where the setting sun-raj^s 

l/L Steeped the clouds in gorgeous dyes, 

vl Stood my httle maid last evening, 

All her soul within her eyes. 
"Mamma?" cried she, earnest, breathless, 

With a faith no doubt could mar, 
"Isn't that what you've been reading? 

Isn't that the ' Gates Ajar ? ' " 

" I can almost see the shining 

Of the streets all paved with gold! 
I can almost see the gleaming 

Of the harps the angels hold ! 
Almost, mamma! for the glory 

Shines so bright it dazzles me." 
" Mamma ! " here the soft voice faltered, 

"Ain't I good enough to see! 

" Is it 'cause I cried this morning 

When 5^ou called me in from my play? 
If I try again to-morrow, 

Be real careful all the day, 
Give you not the smallest trouble, 

Study all my might and main — 
Won't God let me see it plainly. 

When he ope's the gates again?" 

" Nay my darling — years of striving, 

Day by day, and hour by hour. 
Every duty still fulfilling, 

Could not give the wondrous power ; 
Yet would mist of sun and weakness 

From your gaze the vision bar — 
Never human eyes, unaided 

Penetrate the gates ajar!" 

Filled with wonder, vague yet wistful, 

Gazed the soft blue eyes in mine, 
Reading not my hidden meaning. 

Loath the bright dream to resign. 
" Never, mamma ! shall I never 

See that Heaven so bright and fair, 
'Till I leave you, mamma, darling, 

'Till the angels take me there?" 

'*Nay, my child, that heavenly radiance 

Ne'er on earthly vision falls — 
But to those whose hope and treasure 

Garnered are within its walls, 
God gives ofttimes spirit glimpses 

Of their glorious home afar, 



And to cheer life's thorny pathway 
Sets the golden gates ajar! 

" Then how petty seem the trials 

That beset their onward way ! 
Of what little worth the baubles 

Pleasures show to tempt astray ! 
No more weak and no more weary — 

What this perfect bliss can mar ! 
While Faith's eyes behold the glories 

Gleaming though the gates ajar! 

' 0, my darling, grasp the promise. 

Bind it on j^our baby heart, 
That for those who love him, Jesus 

Mansions bright hath set apart ! 
Upward, then, towards the radiance, 

Steadfast shining like a star, 
Unbetrayed your feet shall journey 

'Till they reach the gates ajar." 

NA L, 



.vrH 



MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD. 



tr 



OH dear old friend ! I come this way 
Once more, once more to rest on tUee, 
While generous branch and leafy spray 
A pleasant bower make for me. 

It seems as only yesterday 
That I was racing down the mead. 

With young companions blithe and gay. 
To mount thee, brave and bonny steed. 

The blackbird pipes as cheerily now, 

As gaily flaunts the butterfly, 
As when we shook the pliant bough 

By madly urging thee on high. 

But scattered is that gamesome band 
That filled with mirth the flying hours; 

One sojourns in a distant land. 

One sleeps beneath the daisy flowers. 

And others from my Len have passed, 
But this I feel, where'er they be. 

They'll not forget while life shall last 
Our swing beneath the chestnut-tree. 

J. G. WATT5 



12 




MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD, 

13 




THE FORCED PRAYER. 

¥li¥ 



BABY THANKFUL. 
— .^ — 

OAMIXG in the meadow, 
Little four-year-old 
g Picks the starry daisies, 

With their hearts of gold ; 

Fills her snowy apron, 
Fills her dimpled hands; 

Suddenly — how quiet 
In the grass she stands ! 




^' Who made f 'owers so petty — 
Put 'em here? Did God f 

I half heeding answer 
With a careless nod. 

Dropping all her blossoms, 

With uplifted head, 
Fervent face turned skyward, 

''Thank you, God !" she sai^ 

CAROLINE METCALF. 



14 




^ 



ii 










l?r''l'l|!!i 




'■ THOUGHTS WHILE S 

\ 

~Y * *7~HAT is the little one thinking about? 

\ A / ^^'^y ^vonderful things, no doubt. 

Wy Unwritten history ! 

Unfathomable mystery ! 
But he laughs and cries, and eats and drinks, 
And chuckles and crows and nods and winks, 
As if his head were as full of kiuka 



S THE a 



15 



And curious riddles as any sphynx ! 
Warped by colic and wet by tears, 
Punctured by pins and tortured by fears, 
Our little nephew will lose two years ; 

And he'll never know 

Where the summers go ! 

He need not laugh, for he'll find it 8of 



THOUGHTS WHILE SHE BOCKS THE CRADLE. 



Who can tell what the baby thinks? 
Who can follow the gossamer links 

By which the manikin feels his way, 
Out from the shores of the great unknown, 
Blind, and wailing, and alone, 

Into the light of day ? 
Out from the shores of the unknown sea, 
Tossing in pitiful agony ! 

Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls, 
Specked with the barks of little souls — 
Barks that launched on the other side. 
And slipped from heaven on an ebbing tide I 
And what does he think of his mother's eyes? 

What does he think of his mother's hair? 
What of the cradle roof that flies 

Forward and backward through the air? 
What does he think of his mother's breast, 

Bare and beautiful, smooth and w'hite. 

Seeking ever with fresh delight, 
Cup of his joy, and couch of his rest? 

What does he think when her gentle embrace 
Presses his hand and buries his face 
Deep where the heart throbs sink and swell 
With a te"nderness she can never tell? 

Though she murmur the words of all the birds— 
Wcrds she has learned to murmur so well ! 
Now he thinks he'll go to sleep ! 
I can see the shadows creep 
Over his eyes in soft eclipse. 
Out in his little finger tips, 
Softly sinking down he goes, 

Down he goes, down he goes, 
See ! he is hushed in sweet repose ! 

JosiAH Gilbert Hollakd. 



LADY ANNIE BOTH WELL'S LAMENT. 

ALOW, my babe, ly stil and 
sleipe ! 
It grieves me sair to see thee 
weipe : 
If thou'st be silent, I'se be glad, 
Thy maining maks my heart ful sad. 
Balow, my boy, thy mother's joy, 
Thy father breides me great annoy. 
Balow, my babe, ly stil and sleipe. 
It grieves me sair to see thee weipe. 

Whan he began to court my luve, 
And with his sugred wordes to muve. 
His faynings fals, and flattering cheire 
To me that time did not appeire : 




But now I see, most cruell hee 
Cares neither for my babe nor mee. 
Balow, my babe, ly stil and sleipe, 
It grieves me sair to see thee weipe» 

Ly stil, my darling, sleipe a while. 
And when thou wakest, sweitly smile : 
But smile not, as thy father did, 
To cozen maids : nay, God forbid ! 
Bot yett I feire, thou wilt gae neire 
Thy father's hart and face to beire. 
Balow, my babe, ly stil and sleipe. 
It grieves me sair to see thee weipe. 

I cannae cliuse, but ever will 
Be luving to thy father stil : 
Whair-eir he gae, whair-eir he ryde. 
My luve with him doth stil abyde : 
In well or wae, wdiair-eir he gae. 
Mine hart can neire depart him frae. 
Balow, my babe, ly stil and sleipe, 
It grieves me sair to see thee weipe. 

But doe not, doe not, pretty mine. 
To faynings fals thine hart incline; 
Be loyal to thy luver trew. 
And nevir change her for a new : 
If gude or faire, of her have care, 
For women's banning's wondrous sair. 
Balow, my babe, ly stil and sleipe, 
It grieves me sair to see thee weipe. 

Bairne, sin thy cruel father is gane. 

Thy winsome smiles maun else my paine; 

My babe and I'll together live,, 

He'll comfort me when cares doe grieve: 

My babe and I right saft will ly. 

And quite forgeit man's cruelty. 

Balow, my babe, ly stil and sleipe, 
It grieves me sair to see thee weipe. 

Farewell, farewell, thou falsest youth, 
That evir kist a woman's mouth ! 
I wish all maides be warn'd by mee 
Nevir to trust man's curtesy; 
For if we doe bot chance to bow. 
They'll use us than they care not how. 
Balow, my babe, ly stil and sleipe, 
It grieves me sair to see thee weipe. 



ANGELS UNAWAHES. 

\\TL, each of these young human flowers 
God's own high message bears ; 

i And we are walking all our hours 
With " Angels Unawares." 

B. EDMONSTOyE. 



16 




THE PKIDK OF THE FAMILY 




THE MOTHER AS TEACHER. 




HE mother is the himi- 
naiy tliat shines and 
reigns alone in the ear- 
ly child-life ; as years 
advance, the scepter is 
divided and the teach- 
er shares the sway. 

AVe often think, as 
we meet the earnest 
gaze of the interested 
pupil, and watch the mind working and 
the young thought shaping to the will, 
" Why is it that mothers so willingly yield 
to others this broad sphere of their domain, 
and are content to foster the physical and 
external life of their children, leaving the 
intellectual and spiritual to grow without 
their aid ? " 

2 17 



One would suppose that capable moth- 
ers would jealously keep to themselves the 
high privilege of training the mind, and 
so bind their children to themselves by 
ties which are stronger than the mere 
physical tie can be. 

We who have grown to realize to whom 
we are debtors, are thrilled with delight 
as we think of those who have been the 
parents of our intellectual life — who seem 
nearer to us than our familiar friends, 
though we never have and never may look 
upon their living faces, — Bryant, Long- 
fellow, Ruskin, Emerson and Carlyle, and 
many another. How they have covered 
our lives with a rich broidery of beau- 
tiful and inspiring thought, so that to 



THE MOTHER AS TEACHER. 



live in the same world, and at the same 
time, seems a benison of blessing. 

So may the mother weave into the life 
of her children thoughts and feelings, rich, 
beautiful, grand and noble, which will 
make all after-life brighter and better. 

Many a good mother may think she has 
no time for this mind and soul culture, 
but we find no lack of robes and ruffles, 
and except in cases where the daily bread 
of the family must be earned by daily 
work away from home, as is done by many 
a weary mother, we must feel that there 
is not one who cannot command one half 
hour each morning, when the mind is fresh 
and vigorous, to collect her children around 
her, and minister for a little to their higher 
wants. 

If each mother according to her several 
ability, seeks to develop the higher and 
better faculties of her children, the reward 
will be as great as the aim is noble. 



-^ B A i B Y -^ 



:lik 



^^ABY, baby, on my breast. 

Oh, my little one, sleep sound ! 
While the red clouds warm the west, 
And the bright leaves light the ground. 
Mother's love is round you here ; 
God's love, too, is close and near; 
Full and happy be thy rest. 
Baby, baby, on my breast ! 

Baby, baby, at my knee. 

Lift your eyes up, let them show 
All the dreams I cannot see ; 

Talk and tell me, make me know 
How the world's dim puzzles seem 
To your soul's pure waking dream. 
Bring your marbles all to me, 
Baby, baby, at my knee. 



SWEET AND LOW. 




^WEET and low, sweet and low, 
Wind of the western sea, 
Low, low, breathe and blow, 
Wind of the western sea ! 
Over the rolling waters go, 
Come from the dying moon, and blow, 

Blow him again to me ; 
While my little one, while my pretty one 
sleeps. 

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest. 

Father will come to thee soon; 
Rest, rest, on mother's breast, 

Father will come to thee soon ; 
Father will come to his babe in the nest. 
Silver sails all out of the west 

Under the silver moon : 
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, 
sleep. 

ALFRED TENNYSON. 



Baby, baby, at my side. 

Ah, your cheek just reaches mine. 
So, time will not be denied ; 

Glossy braids are smooth and fine, 
And I read within your eyes 
Womanhood's fair mysteries, 
Baby, baby, at my side. 
Tall enough to be a bride ! 

Baby, baby, far from me. 

Lines of care have crossed your brow, 
Little children climb your knee, 

Fill your heart and household now, 
" Mother," is my baby's name. 
Yet to me, she's still the same ; 
Still the child I rocked to rest 
As a baby on my breast. 

MARY AINGE DE VERE. 



18 




-^BABIES AND THEIR RIGHTS.-^ 




BABY has a right, too fre- 
quently denied it, to be let 
alone. It ought to be a rule 
in the nursery never to dis- 
turb the infant when it is happy and quiet. 
Older children, too, two, three, and four 
years of age, who are amusing themselves 
in a peaceful, contented way, ought not to 
be wantonly interfered with. I have often 
Been a little creature lying in its crib coo- 
ing, laughing, crooning to itself in the 



sweetest baby fashion, without a care in 
the w^orld to vex its composure, when in 
would come mamma or nurse, seize it, 
cover it with endearments, and effectually 
break up its tranquility. Then, the next 
time, when these thoughtless people want- 
ed it to be quiet, they were surprii?ed that 
it refused to be so. It is habit and train- 
ing which makes little children restless 
and fretful, rather than natural disposi- 
tion, in a multitude of cases, A healthy 



19 



BABIES AND THEIR RIGHTS. 



babe, coolly and loosely dressed, judicioas- 
ly fed, and frequently bathed, Avill be good 
and comfortable if it have not too much 
attention. But when it is liable a dozen 
times a day to be caught wildly up, 
bounced and jumped about, smothered 
with kisses, poked by facetious fingers, 
and petted till it is thoroug^hly out of 
sorts, what can be expected of it? How 
would fathers and mothers endure the 
martyrdom to which they allow the babies 
to be subjected ? 

Another right which every baby has is 
to its own mother's care and supervision. 
The mother may not be strong enough to 
hold her child and carry it about, to go 
Avith it on its outings, and to personally 
attend to all its wants. Very often it is 
really better for both mother and child 
that the strong arms of an able-bodied 
woman should l)ear it through its months 
of helplessness. Still, no matter how ap- . 
parently worthy of trust a nurse or serv- 
ant may be, unless she have been tried and 
proved by long and faithful service and 
friendship, a babe is too precious to be 
given unreservedly to her care. The 
mother herself, or an elder sister or auntie, 
should hover protectingly near the tiny 
creature, whose life-long happiness may 
depend on the way its babyhood is passed. 
Who has not seen in the city parks the 
beautifully-dressed infants, darlings evi- 
dently of homes of wealth and refinement, 
left to bear the beams of the sun and 
stings of gnats and flies, while the nurses 
gossiped together, oblivious of the flight 
of time ? Mothers are often quick to re- 
sent stories of the neglect or cruelty of 
their employees, and cannot be made to 
believe that their own children are suifer- 
ers. And the children are too young to 
speak. 

The lover of little ones can almost al- 
ways see the subtle difference which exists 



between the babies whom mothers care for, 
and the babies who are left to hirelings. 
The former have a sweeter, shyer, gladder 
look than the latter. Perhaps the babies 
who are born, so to speak, with silver 
spoons in their mouths, are better off* than 
those who came to the heritage of a gold 
spoon. The gold spooners have lovely 
cradles and vassinets. They wear Val- 
enciennes lace and embroidery, and fash- 
ion dictates the cut of their bibs, and the 
length of their flowing robes. They are 
waited upon by bonnes in picturesque 
aprons and caps, and the doctor is sent for 
whenever they have the colic. The little 
silver- spooners, on the other hand, are 
arrayed in simple slips, which the mother 
made herself in dear, delicious hours, the 
sweetest in their mystic joy which happy 
Avomanhood knoAvs. They lie on the sofa, 
or on two chairs AAdth a pillow placed 
carefully to hold them, while she sings at 
her Avork, spreads the snoAvy linen on the 
grass, moulds the bread, and shells the 
peas. The mother's hands wash and dress 
them, the father rocks them to sleep, the 
proud brothers and sisters carry them to 
Avalk, or Avheel their little wagons. along 
the pavement. Fortunate babies of the 
silver spoon ! 

Alas and alack ! for the babies who 
haA^e never a spoon at all, not even a horn 
or a leaden one. Their poor parents love 
them, amid the squalid circumstances 
which hem them in, but they can do little 
for their Avell-being, and they die by hun- 
dreds in garrets and cellars and close tene- 
ment rooms. When the rich and char- 
itable shall devise some way to care for 
the babies of the poor, when Ncav York 
shall imitate Paris in founding an institu- 
tion akin to La Creche, we shall have 
taken a long step forward in the direction 
of social and moral elevation. 



E. SANGSTER. 



20 




So CQy DAUGHiPSr^. 



ON HER BIRTHDAY. 



gljEAR Fannie! nine long years ago, 
While yet the morning sun was low 
And rosy with the eastern glow, 
The landscape smiled ; 
Whilst lowed the newly-Ayakened herds — 
Sweet as the early song of birds, 
I heard those first, delightful words, 
"Thou hast a child!" 



Along with that ujjrising dew 
Tears glistened in eyes, though few, 
To hail a dawning quite as new 

To me, as Time : 
It was not sorrow — not annoy — 
But like a happy maid, though coy, 
With grief-like welcome, eveu Joy 

Forestalls its prime. 

So may^st thou live, dear ! many years, 
In all the bliss that life endears, 



Not without smiles, nor yet from tears, 

Too strictly kept. 
AYhen first thy infant littleness 
I folded in my fond caress. 
The greatest proof of happiness 

Was this — I wept. 



THOMAS HOOD 



j^ 



]|DUt 1^0 iiil0$ %nmt[ J[j[ar. 



one 



'"yWAS whispered 

j[ Heaven, 

How the little child-angel ^lay, 
In the shade of the great white portal. 
Sat sorrowing night and day. 
How she siiid to the stately warden — 
He of the key and bar — 
"Oh angel, sweet angel ! I pray you, 
Set the beautiful gates ajar — 



in 



21 



HOW THE GATES CAME AJAR. 



Only a litde^ won't you 
Set the beautiful gates ajar ! 

^'I can hear my mother weeping; 

She is lonely ; she cannot see 

A glimmer of light in the darkness 

When the gates shut after me. 

Oh ! turn me the key, sweet angel, 

The splendor will shine so far !'' 

But the warden answered, ^^ I dare not 

Set the beautiful gates ajar.'' 

Spoke low and answered: ^'I dare not 

Set the beautiful gates ajar." 

Then up rose Mary the Blessed, 
Sweet Mary, mother of Christ ; 
Her hand on the hand of the Angel 
She laid, and the touch sufficed. 
Turned was the key in the portal. 
Fell ringing the golden bar ; 
And lo! in the little child's fingers 
Stood the beautiful gates ajar ! 

'^ And the key for no further using, 
To my blessed son shall be given," 
Said Mary, Mother of Jesus — 
Tenderest heart in Heaven. 
Now, never a sad-eyed mother 
But may catch the glory afar. 
Since safe in the Lord Christ's bosom 
Are the Izeys of the gates ajar ; 
Close hid in the dear Christ's bosom; 
And the gates forever ajar ! 



^IfeA 



LITTLE CHARLIE. 

LITTLE presence ! everywhere 
We find some touching trace of thee — 
A pencil mark upon the wall 

That " naughty hands " made 
thoughtlessly ; 
And broken toys around the house. 

Where he has left them they have lain, 
Waiting for little busy hands 



That will not come again — 
Will never come again. 

Within the shrouded room below 
He lies cold — and jQi we know 

It is not Charlie there ! 
It is not Charlie, cold and white, 
It is the robe, that in his flight, 

He gently cast aside ! 

Our darlino- hath not died ! 



A L D R I C H . 




A CHILD PRAYING. 

^HpjOLD thy little hands in prayer, 
,v^^ Bow down at thy mother's knee, 
^"^^ jN"ow thy sunny face is fair. 
Shining through tliine auburn hair ; 

Thine eyes are passion-free ; 
And pleasant thoughts, like garlands bind thee 
Unto thy home, yet grief may find thee — 
Then pray, child, pray ! 

Now, thy young heart, like a bird, 

Warbles in its summer nest ; 
No evil thought, no unkind word, 
No chilling autumn winds have stirred 

The beauty of thy rest ; 
But winter hastens, and decay 
Shall waste thy verdant home away — 
Then pray, child, pray ! 

Thy bosom is a house of glee. 

With gladness harping at the door ; 
While ever, with a joyous shout, 
Hope, the May queen, dances out, 

Her lips with music running o'er ; 
But Time those strings of joy will sever, 
And hope will not dance on for ever — 
Then pray, child, pray 

Now, thy mother's arm is spread 
Beneath thy pillow in the night ; 

And lo^ing feet creep round thy bed, 

And o'er thy quiet face is shed 
The taper's darkened light ; 

But that fond arm ^ill pass away, 
By thee no more those feet will stay — 
Then pray, child, pray ! 

ROBERT A R I S W I L I. M O T T . 



22 



Mo Age Con^en^ With iU OWn Estate. 



.e^ 



^-^ 




SAW the little boy, 

In thought how oft that he 
Did wish of God, to 'scape the rod, 

A tall young man to be. 

The young man eke that feels 
His bones with pains opprest, 

How he would be a rich old man. 
To live and lie at rest : 

The rich old man that sees 

His end draw on so sore. 
How he would be a boy again, 

To live so much the more. 

Whereat full oft I smiled, 

To see how all these three, 
From boy to man, and man to boy, 

Would chop and change degree. 

******* 

Whereat I sighed, and said, 
* Farewell my wonted joy. 
Truss up thy pack, and trudge from me, 
To every little boy ; 

And tell them thus from me, 

Their time most happy is, 
If to their time they reason had. 

To know the truth of this. 

EARL OF SURREY. 



S^ 



*^ 



^HILE yet the Spring is young, while earth unbinds 
i'Jkji^i Her frozen bosom to the western winds ; 
While mountain snow dissolve against the Sun, 
And streams, yet new, from precipices run; 
E'en in this early dawning of the year, 
Produce the plough and yoke the sturdy steer. 

23 



VIRGIL, 



dl 



OVTy/C> 



X 



I 






HO can look at this exquisite 
little creatiu'e seated on its 
cushion, and not acknowl- 
edge its prerogative of life 
— ^that mysterious influence which in spite 
of the stubborn understanding masters the 





mind, sending it back to days long past, 
when care was but a dream, and its most seri- 
otis business, a childish frolic ? But we no 
longer think of childhood as the past, still 
less as an abstraction, we see it embodied 
before tis in all its mirth, and fim, and 
glee, and the grave man becomes a 
child, to feel as a child, and to fol- 
low the little enchanter through 
all iis wiles and never ending 
labyrinth of pranks, ^hat can be 
real if that is not which so takes 
us out of our present selves thai 
the weight of years fall from U5 
as a garment ; that the freshness 
of life seems to begin anew, and 
the heart and the fancy, resimi- 
ing the first joyous consciousness; 
to launch again into this moving 
world, as on a sunny sea whose 
pliant waves yield to the touch 
sparkling and buoyant, cari-y 
them onward in their merry gam- 
bols? Where all the purpo-es of 
realit^^ are answered, if there be 
no philosophy in admitting, we 
see no wisdom in disputing it. 

WASHINGTON A L L S T O N . 



THE WID0W ^P CPILD. 

HOME they brought her warrior 
dead : 
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry ; 
All her maidens, watching, said, 
" She must weep, or she will die." 

Then they praised him, soft and low, 
Called him worthy to be loved, 

Truest friend and noblest foe ; 
Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 



Stole a maiden from her place, 
Lightly to the warrior stept, 

Took a face-cloth from the face. 
Yet she neither moved nor wept. 

Rose a nurse of ninety' years, 
Set his child upon her knee — 

Like summer tempest came her tears — 
"Sweet my child. I live for thee."^ 

A L F R E P TENNYSON, 



24 





GifPifC/TF OF CHILDREN. 

MPROVEMEXT depends far in but a little each day; they are like 9 

vase with a narrow neck; you may poiu 
little or pour much, but much will not 
enter at a time, m i c h e l e t. 



less upon lengths of tasks and 
hours of application than is 
supposed. Children can take 



25 





^ ©LEA POf^ iPHB Boy. 



»>*^^O^c 



[//Mcwy ♦ ILswJpWI f offence in him- 

self. He must 
have something 
to do, and as his 
hands are idle, the pro- 
verbial provider of 
occupation for idle 
hands is always ready 
with instructions for 
him. A boy makes noise 
in utter defiance of the 
laws of acoustics. Shoe 
him in velvet, and carpet your house as 



you will, your boy shall make such hub- 
bub with his heels as no watchmaii^s rat- 
tle ever gave forth. Doors in his hands 
always shut with a violence which jars 
the whole house, and he is certain to ac- 
quire each day the art of screaming or 
whistling in some wholly new and excru- 
ciating way. Loving his mother so vio- 
lently that his caresses derange her attire 
and seriously endanger her bones, ready 
to die in her defence if need be, he never- 
theless torments her from morning to 
night, and allows her no possible peace 
until slumber closes his throat and eye- 



26 



A PLEA FOR THE BOY, 



lids, and deprives his hands and feet of 
their demoniac cunning. 

In public your boy is equally a nui- 
sance. Collectively or individually he 
offends the public in the streets. What- 
ever he does is sure to be wrong. He 
monopolizes space and takes to himself 
all the air there is for acoustical purposes. 
Your personal peculiarities interest him, 
and with all the frankness of his soul he 
comments upon your appearance, address- 
ing his remarks to his fellow on the next 
block. 

Nevertheless the boy has his useso He 
is the material out of which men are to 
be made for the next generation. He is 
not a bad fellow, — that is to say, he is not 
intentionally or consciously bad. There 
are springs in his limbs which keep him 
in perpetual motion, and the devil of up- 
roar of which he is possessed utters the 
ear-piercing sounds which annoy his eld- 
ers, but the utterances of which he can 
no more restrain than he can keep his 
boots or trousers from wearing out. In a 
ten-acre lot, well away from the house, 
the boy is a picturesque and agreeable 
person ; it is only when one must come 
into closer contact with him that his pres- 
ence causes suffering and suggests a statue 
to King Herod. It is in cities that the 
boy makes himself felt most disagreeably, 
and we fancy that the fault is not alto- 
gether his. As the steam which bursts 
boilers would be a perfectly harmless 
vapor, but for the sharp restraint that is 
put upon it, so the effervescent boy be- 
comes dangerous to social order only 
when he is confined, when an effort is 
made to compress him into smaller space 
than the law of his expansive being ab- 
solutely requires. AVe send him upon 
the war-path by encroaching upon his 
hunting-grounds ; we drive him into hos- 
tility by treating him as a public enemy. 



In most of our dealings with him in cities 
our effort is to suppress ,him, and it is an 
unwise system. If his ball-playing in the 
streets becomes an annoyance, we simply 
forbid ball-playing in the streets, and it 
is an inevitable consequence that, deprived 
of his ball, he will throw stones at street 
lamps or at policemen. What else is he 
to do ? 

In Brooklyn, for example, whose streets 
are long and wide, there was thought to 
be room enough for boys, and the inspir- 
ing rumble of the velocipede was heard 
there until somebody objected, when 
straightway the policemen were directed 
to arrest all machines of that character, 
whether with two, three, or four wheels, 
found upon sidewalks. Now this order 
we hold was not only cruel, but it was 
unwise as well. Without a doubt the 
velocipedes were a source of serious 
annoyance in crowded thoroughfares, but 
they are not so in streets in which pedes- 
trians are few, as they are in fully one- 
half of Brooklyn's thoroughfares. Velo- 
cipede riding might have been forbidden 
in the main thoroughfares, and permitted 
in less frequented ones, and the boy 
would have been content ; to forbid it 
where it offends nobody — merely for the 
sake of preventing it where it does offend 
— is illogical and unjust, and, worse still, 
it is unwise. The boy cannot be banished 
or confined, and, lacking his velocipede, 
he will resort to something more annoy- 
ing still. What it will be we do not 
pretend to guess, but for its capacity to 
annoy we may safely trust to the boy's 
ingenuity. 

Speaking in all seriousness, it is not 
well to suppress the sports of boys from 
which they derive strength and health 
and manly vigor of body. We may and 
must regulate these things ; but mere 
suppression is a crude and tyrannical 



27 




28 



A PLEA FOR THE BOY. 



method of dealing with them. In Boston, 
a city of notions, whose notions are some- 
times surprisingly wise and good, care is 
taken to give the boy room. A sport 
which })ecomes annoying is not suppi^ssed, 
but is given ample room in places where 
it will annoy least ; and when, for exam- 
ple, certain streets are publicly set apart 
for coasting, as they are in Boston every 
Avinter, the police have no difficulty in 
preventing coasting elsewhere. The boy 
who may ride his sled or velocipede to his 
heart's content in one street, will not care 
to intrude upon another. AYe need to 
adopt a like system in our larger cities. 
The boys must have room in which to 
exercise and grow. If we do not give it 
to them in one place they will take it in 
another, to our sore inconvenience. 

N. Y. EVENING POST. 



THE LESSON. 

[A beautiful answer was given by a little Scotch girl; 
when her class at school was examined, she replied to 
the question. " What is patience?"— '' Wait a wee, and 
ainna weary."] 

A VILLAGE school-room — this the 
scene — 
Aglow with a slant sun cheery : 
A dominie there, of youthful mien, 
With the sun of his spirit sharp and keen, 
And a class of girls in serried row, 
Some taller, and some of stature low : 
And some like the morning sun, afire 
To reach the summit of brave desire; 
And, as aye, some unco' dreary ! 

" I canna an' winna teach, and ye 

Sae stupid the while I query — 
Nae vision for ocht but vanity ! " 
With thundering rap the dominie 
Out-blurted, chafed by a listless girl, 
Whose only care seemed to smooth and 

twirl 
Her apron streamers. '' Will onie lass 
Mak' answer in a' this glaikit class ? " 
The dominie sighed aweary. 



" Oh, ay," said a httle one, " I can tell." 

" Weel, out wi't, then, my dearie" — 
And the frown from the master's forehead 

fell, 
For the sweetest girl in school was Nell — 
" I wan't ye to show me the meaning plain 
0'' patience ; sin' ow'r and ow'r again 
I've put it this day ! " Then the little maid- 
With a roguish twinkle, soberly said, 
" Wait a wee' and dinna weary," 

MARY B . DODGE. 



fve ^avn^oly ol ^Ivilbt^en. 




OWN the dimpled green-sward 
dancing, 
Bursts a flaxen-headed bevy 
Bud-liptboys and girls advancing, 
Love's irregular little levy. 
Rows of liquid eyes in laughter, 

How they glimmer how they quiver ! 
Sparkling one another after, 

Like bright ripples on a river. 
Tipsy band of rubious faces. 

Flushed with Joy's ethereal spirit. 
Make your mocks and sly grimaces 
At Love's self, and do not fear it. 

GEORGE DARLEY 



T 



truth 



EDUCATION. 

'IS granted, and no plainer 
appears, 
Our most important are our earliest 
years ; 
The mind, impressible and soft, with ease 
Imbibes and copies wdiat she hears and 

sees. 
And through life's labyrinth holds fast 

the clue 
That education gives her, false or true. 



SEASON divine, the first-born of the year- 
Past is thy father. Winter, to his rest ; 
Resplendent thou, in Nature's beauteous year. 
Inheritest the land thou makcst blest. 
Now let sweet song the blissful tidings sing- 
God once more smileth on the new-born Spring. 

FK. AUGS. LEWIS. 



29 




HOW MAMMA PLAYS. 



J 



UST the sweetest thing that the children do 
Is to play with mamma, a-playing too ; 
And " Baby is lost/' they think is the best, 
For mamma plays that with a merry zest. 



« My baby's lost !" up and down mamma goes, 
A-peering about and following her nose, 
Inside the papers, and under the books, 
And all in between the covers she looks, 

" Baby ! Baby !" calling. 
But though in her way is papa's tall hat. 
She never once thinks to look under that. 

3he listens, she stops, she hears the wee laugh, 
And around she flies, the faster by half, 
'' Why, where can he be ?" and she opens the clock, 
She tumbles her basket, she shakes papa's sock, 

"Baby! Baby!" calling. 
While the children all smile at papa's tall hat. 
Though none of them go and look under that. 

A sweet coo calls. Mamma darts everywhere, 
She feels in her pockets to see if he's there, 
In every vase on the mantel shelf, 
She searches sharp for the little elf, 
**BabyI Baby!" calling. 



Another coo comes from papa's tall hat, 
Yet none of them stir an inch toward that. 
Somewhere he certainly must be, she knows, 
So up to the China cupboard she goes; 
The covers she lifts from the sugar-bowls, 
The sweet, white lumps she rattles and rolls, 

"Baby! Baby!" calling. 
But though there's a stir near papa's tall hat, 
They will not so much as look toward that. 

She moves the dishes, but baby is not 

In the cream-pitcher nor in the tea-pot ; 

And she wrings her hands and stamps on the floor. 

She shakes the rugs, and she opens the door, 

"Baby! Baby!" calling. 
They stand with their backs to papa's tall hat, 
Though the sweetest murmurs come from that. 

The children join in the funny distress, 
Till mamma, all sudden, with swift caress. 
Makes a pounce right down on the old, tall black Hat 
And brings out the baby from under that, 

"Baby! Baby!" calling. 
And this is the end of the little play. 
The children would like to try every day. 

Ella Faeman. 

30 



.r^- 



AN APRIL DAY, 



•*^ 



r^rJ^F HEN the warm sun, that brings 
^m^/j Seed-time and harvest, has re- 
l\fOT/4 turned again, 

'Tis sweet to visit the still 
wood, where springs 
The first flower of the plain. 

I lo\ c the sea«;on a\ ell, 
When foiest glades aic 

blight fornix, 
Xoi daik and main -folded clouds foretell 

The coming on of stoims. 




From the earth's loosened mould 
The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives; 
Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold, 

The drooping tree revives. 

The softly-warbled song 
Comes from the pleasant woods, and colored 

wings 
Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves 
along 
The forest openings. 

When the bright sunset fills 
The silver woods with light, the green slope 
throws 



Its shadows in the hollows of the hills, 
\nd ^\ idc the upland glows. 

\nd v,\\on the oxc is born, 
In the blue lake the sky, o'er-reaching f^ir 
Is hollowed out, and the moon dips her horn, 

And twinkles many a star. 

Inverted in the tide 
Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shadows 

throw. 
And the fair trees look over, side by side, 

And see themselves below. 

Sweet April ! many a thought 
Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed ; 
Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought. 

Life's golden fruit is shed. 

H. W. LONGFELLOW. 



31 




^mmmmmmmmimEmT^ 




HE child is father of the man. we meet this array of words ! Yet how 
Men are but children of a lar- insensible we are to the profound philos- 
ger growth. How often do ophy they enwrap. Sublime and aston- 

32 



WHAT ARE CHILVKEN. 



ishing truths ! Uttered every day in our 
hearing, set before our eyes at every step 
of our journey through life, written over 
all the monuments of earth, upon the 
pages and banners of all History, upon 
the temples and the pyramids, the palaces 
and the sepulchres of departed Nations, 
upon all the doings of the Past and Pres- 
ent, as with unextinguishable fire, and 
sounding forever and ever in the unap- 
proachable solitudes of the Future! Yet 
heard with indiiference, read without emo- 
tion, and repeated from mouth to mouth, 
day after day and year after year, without 
a suspicion of their deep meaning, of their 
transcendent importance, of their imper- 
ishable beauty. And why ? The language 
is too familiar, the apparent signification 
too simple and natural for the excited un- 
derstandings of the multitude. There is 
no curtain to be lifted, no veil to be rent 
as with the hands of giants. Ho zone to be 
loosened, no mystery to be expounded afar 
off", as in the language of another world, 
nothing to be guessed at, or deciphered, 
nothing but what anybody might under- 
stand if he would, and, therefor^e, nothing 
to be remembered or cared for. 

But, in simple truth, a more sublime 
interrogation could not be propounded 
than that which may appear to be answered 
by the language referred to, What are 
children f Step to the window with me. 
The street is full of them. Yonder a school 
is let loose; and here, just within reach of 
our observation, are two or three noisy 
little fellows ; and there, another party 
mustering for play. Some are whispering 
together, and plotting so loudly and so 
earnestly, as to attract everybody's atten- 
tion ; while others are holding themselves 
aloof, with their satchels gaping so as to 
betray a part of their plans for to-morrow 
afternoon, or laying their heads together in 
pairs, for a trip to the islands. Look at 



them, weigh the question I have put t« 
you, and then answer it, as it deserves to 
to be answered. What are children f To 
which you reply at once, without any sort 
of hesitation perhaps, — " Just as the twig 
is bent the tree's inclined"; or, " Men are 
but children of a larger gro^^-th " ; or, per- 
adventure, "The child is father of the 
man.'' And then, perhaps, you leave me, 
perfectly satisfied with yourself and with 
your answer, having "plucked out the 
heart of the mystery," and uttered, with- 
out knowing it, a string of glorious truths, 
— pearls of great price. 

But instead of answering you as another 
might, instead of saying. Very true, what 
if I were to call you back to the window 
with words like these : Do you know Avhat 
you have said ? do you know the meaning 
of the language you have employed ? or, 
in other words, do you know your ovm 
meaning f AMiat would you think of me ? 
That I was playing the philosopher, per- 
haps, that I wanted to puzzle you with a 
childish question, that I thought I was 
thinking, or at best that I was a little out 
of my senses. Yet, if you were a man of 
understanding, I should have paid you a 
high compliment ; a searcher after truth, 
I should have done you a great favor ; a 
statesman, a law-giver, a philanthropist, a 
patriot, or a father, I should have laid you 
under everlasting obligations, I should 
have opened a boundless treasury under- 
neath your feet, I should have translated 
you instantly to a new world, carried you 
up into a high mountain, as it were, and 
set before you all the kingdoms of the 
earth, with all their revolutions and 
changes, all future history, the march of 
armies, the growth of conquerors, the wax- 
ing and the waning of empire, the changes 
of opinion, the apparition of thrones dash- 
ing against thrones, the overthrow of sys- 
tems, and the revolution of ages. 



33 



WHAT ARE CHILDREN, 



Among the children who are now play- 
ing together, — like birds among the blos- 
soms of earth, haunting all the green 
shadowy placas thereof, and rejoicing in 
the bright air ; happy and beautiful crea- 
tures, and as changeable as happy, with 
eyes brimful of joy, and with hearts play- 
ing U2X)n their little faces like sunshine 
upon clear waters ; among those who are 
now idling together on that slope, or hunt- 
ing butterflies togethei-^on the edge of that 
wood, a wilderness of roses, — you would 
see not only the gifted, and the powerful, 
the wise and the eloquent, the ambitious 
and the renowned, the long-lived and the 
long-to-be lamented of another age, but 
the wicked and the treacherous, the liar 
and the thief, the abandoned profligate 
and the faithless husband, the gambler 
and the drunkard, the robber, the burglar, 
the ravisher, the murderer, and the be- 
trayer of his country. The child is father 
of the man. 

Among them and'that other little troop 
just appearing, children with yet happier 
faces and pleasanter eyes, the blossoms of 
the future — the mothers of nations — ^you 
would see the founders of states and the 
destroyers of their country, the steadfast 
and the weak, the judge and the criminal, 
the murderer and the executioner, the 
exalted and the lowly, the unfaithful wife 
and the broken-hearted husband, the 
proud betrayer and his pale victim, the 
living and breathing portents and prodi- 
gies, the embodied virtues and vices, of 
another age and of another world, and all 
playing together ! Men are but children 
of a larger growth. 

Pursuing the search you would go forth 
among the little creatures, as among the 
types of another and a loftier language, 
the mystery whereof has just been re- 
vealed to you, — a language to become 
universal hereafter, types in which the 



autobiography of the Future was written 
ages ago. Among the iDuocent and help- 
less creatures that are called children, you 
would see warriors, with their garments 
rolled in blood, the spectres of kings and 
princes, poets with golden harps and illu- 
minated eyes, historians and painters, 
architects and sculptors, mechanics and 
merchants, preachers and lawyers; here 
a grave-digger flying his kite with his 
future customers, there a physician playing 
at marbles with his ; here the predestined 
to an early and violent death for cowardice, 
fighting the battles of a whole neighbor- 
hood ; there a Cromwell or a Csesar, a Xa- 
poleon or a Washington, hiding them- 
selves for fear, enduring reproach or insult 
with patience; a Benjamin Franklin hig- 
gling for nuts or gingerbread, or the "Old 
Parr '^ of another generation sitting apart 
in the sunshine, and shivering at every 
breath of ^^nd that reaches him. Yet 
we are told that '^ just as the twig is bent 
the tree's inclined.^' 

Hereafter is made up of the shreds and 
patches of Heretofore. If '^ Men are but 
children of a larger growth,'' then what 
are children f Men of a smaller growth. 
And this happens to be the truth, not 
only in the world of imagination, but in 
the world of realities ; not only among 
poets, but among lawyers. At law, chil- 
dren are men, — little children murderers. 
A boy of nine, and others of ten and eleven, 
have been put to death in England, two 
for murder, and a third for " cunninglv 
and maliciously firing" two barns. Of 
the little murderers, one killed his 
playmate and the other his bedfellow. 
And therefore, said the judges, they knew 
they had done wrong, — they could distin- 
guish between good and evil ; and there- 
fore they ordered both to be strangled. 
And they were strangled accordingly. 
As if a child who is old enough to know 



34 



WHAT ARE CHILDREN. 



that he has done wrong, is therefore old 
enough to know that he deserves death ! 
So with regard to children of the other 
sex. At law babies are women, women 
babies. The same law which classes our 
mothers and our wives, our sisters and 
our daughters, with infants, lunatics, 
idiots*and "persons beyond sea," allows a 
child to be betrothed at seven, to be en- 
dowed of her husband's future estate at 
nine, and to agree or disagree to a previ- 
ous marriage at twelve. And what is 
law in England is law here. 

Such are children. Corrupted they are 
fountains of bitterness for ages. Would 
you plant for the skies ? Plant in the 
live soil of the warm and generous and 
youthful ; pour all your treasures into the 
hearts of diildren. Would you look into 
the future as with the spirit of prophecy, 
and read as with a telescope the history 
and character of our country, and of other 
oountries? You have but to watch the 
eyes of children at play. 

What children are, neighborhoods are, 
communities are, states, empires, worlds ! 
They are the elements of Hereafter made 
visible. 

Even fathers and mothers look upon 
children with a strange misapprehension 
of their dignity. Even with the poets 
they are only the flowers and blossoms, 
the dew-drops or the playthings of earth. 
Yet *' of such is the kingdom of heaven.'' 
The Kingdom of Heaven ! with all its 
principalities and powers, its hierarchies, 
dominations, thrones ! The Saviour un- 
derstood them better ; to Him their true 
dignky was revealed. Flowers! They 
are the flowers of the invisible world, — 
indestructible, self-perpetuating flowers, 
with each a multitude of angels and evil 
spirits underneath its leaves, toiling and 
wrestling for dominion over it ! Blossoms ! 
They are the blossoms of another world, 



Avhose fruitage is angels and archangels. 
Or dew-drops ? They are dew-drops that 
have their source, not in the chambers of 
the earth, nor among the vapors of the 
sky, which the next breath of wind, or the 
next flash of sunshine may dry up forever, 
but among the everlasting fountains and 
inexhaustible reservoirs of mercy and 
love. Playthings! God! — if the little 
creatures would but appear to us in their 
true shape for a moment ! We should 
fall upon our faces before them, or grow 
pale with consternation, or fling them off 
with horror and loathing. What would 
be our feelings to see a fair child start up 
before us a maniac or a murderer, armed 
to the teeth ? to find a nest of sei-pents 
on our pillow ? a destroyer or a traitor, a 
Harry the Eighth, or a Benedict Arnold 
asleep in our bosom ? A Catharine or a 
Peter, a Bacon, a Galileo, or a Benthan, 
a Napoleon or a Voltaire, clambering up 
our knees after sugar-plums? Cuvier 
laboring to distinguish a horse-fly from 
a blue-bottle, or dissecting a spider with a 
rusty nail ? La Place trying to multiply 
his own apples, or to subtract his play- 
fellows' gingerbread? What should we 
say to find ourselves romping with 
Messalina, Swedenborg, Madam de Stael ? 
or playing bo-peep w^ith Murat, Robes- 
pierre, and Charlotte Corday ? or puss- 
puss in the corner with George Washing- 
ton, Jonathan Wild, Shakespeare, Sap- 
pho, Jeremy Taylor, Mrs. Clark, Alfieri, 
and Harriet Wilson ? Yet stranger things 
have happened. These were all children 
but the other day, and clambered about 
the knees, and rummaged in the pockets, 
and nestled in the laps of the people no 
better than we are. But if they had ap- 
peared in their true shape for a single 
moment, while playing together ! What 
a scampering there would have been among 
the grown folks ! How their fingers would 



35 



(VHAT ARE CHILDREN. 



have tingled ! Now to me there is no 
study half so delightful as that of these 
little creatures, with hearts fresh from the 
gardens of the sky, in their first and 
fairest and most unintentional disclosures, 
while they are indeed a mystery, a fra- 
graqt, luminous, and beautiful mystery. 
And I have an idea that if we only had a 
name for the study, it might be found as 
attractive and as popular, and perhaps, — 
though I would not go too fsiY— perhaps 
about as advantageous in the long run 
to the future fathers and mothers of 
mankind, as the study of shrubs and 
flowers, or that of birds and fishes. And 
why not ? They are the cryptogamia of 
another world, — the infusoria of the skies. 

Then why not pursue the study for your- 
selves? The subjects are always before 
you. IS'o books are needed, no costly 
drawings, no lectures, neither transparen- 
cies nor illustrations. Your specimens are 
all about you. They come and go at your 
bidding. They are not to be hunted for, 
along the edge of a precipice, on the bor- 
ders of the wilderness, in the desert, nor 
by the sea-shore. They abound not in the 
uninhabited or un visited place, but in your 
very dwelling-houses, about the steps of 
your doors, in every street of every village, 
in every green field, and every crowded 
thoroughfare. They flourish bravely in 
snow storms, in the dust of the trampled 
highway, where the drums are beating and 
colors flying — m the roar of cities. They 
love the sounding sea-breeze and the open 
air, and may always be found about the 
wharves, and rejoicing before the windows 
of toy-shops. They love the blaze of fire- 
works and the smell of gunpowder ; and 
where that is/ they are to a dead certainty. 

You have but to go abroad for half an 
hour in pleasant Aveather, or to throw open 
your doors or windows on a Saturday after- 
noon, if you live anywhere in the neigh- 



borhood of a school-house, or a vacant lot, 
with here and there a patch of green, or a 
dry place in it, and steal behind the cur- 
tains, draw the blinds, and let the fresh 
wind blow through and through the cham- 
bers of your heart for a few minutes, win- 
nowing the dust and scattering the cob- 
webs that have gathered there while you 
were asleep, and lo ! you will find it ring- 
ing with the voices of children at play, and 
all alive with the glimmering phantasma- 
goria of leap-frog, prison-base, knock-up- 
and-catch. 



JOHN NEAL, 



A THQUSHT OVER A CRADLE. 



gj^ SADDEN when thou smilest to my smile, 
^P Child of my love ! I tremble to believe 
■^^ That o'er the mirror of that eye of blue 
The shadow of my heart will always pass ; — 
A heart that, from, its struggle with the world, 
Comes nightly to thy guarded cradle home, 
And, careless of the staining dust it brings, 
Asks for its idol ! Strange, that flowers of earth 
Are visited by every air that stirs, 
And drink in sweetness only, while the child 
That shuts within its breast a bloom for heaven 
May take a blemish from the breath of love, 
And bear the blight forever. 

♦ I have wept 

With gladness at the gift of this fair child! 
My life is bound up in her. But, oh God I 
Tliou know'st how heaA-ily my heart at times 
Bears its sweet burden ; and if thou hast given 
To nurture such as mine this spotless flower, 
To bring it unpolluted unto Thee, 
Take Thou its love, I pray Thee ! Give it light — 
Though, following the sun, it turn from me! — 
But, by the chord thus wrung, and by the light 
Shining about her, draw me to my child ! 
And link us close, oh God, when near to heaven ! 

N. p. WILLIS. 



36 



OUR LAMBS. 



Ay, it is well ; 
Well with my lambs, and with their earthly guide, 
There, pleasant rivers wander they beside, 
Or strike sweet harj)3 upon its silver tide — 

Ay ! it is well. 

Through the dreary day, 
They often come from glorious light to me; 
I cannot feel their touch, their faces see. 
Yet my soul whispers, they do come to me. 

Heaven is not far away. 




(Qhild and the (Mourners. 



LITTLE child beneath a tree, 
■^' Sat and chanted cheerily 

A little song, a j^leasant song, 
Which was — she sang it all 

day long — 
''When the wind blows the 

blossoms fall : 
But a good God reigns over 

all." 
There pass'd a lady by the way, 
Moaning in the face of day: 
There were tears upon her cheek, 
Grief in her heart too great to speak ; 
Her husband died but yester-morn. 
And left her in the world forlorn. 

She stopp'd and listen'd to the child 

That look'd to heaven, and, singing, smiled; 

And saw not, for her own despair, 

Another lady, young and fair, 

Who also passing, stopp'd to hear 

The infant's anthem ringing clear. 

For she but few sad days before 
Had lost the little babe she bore; 
And grief was heavy at her soul 
As that sweet memory o'er her stole, 
And show'd how bright had been the past. 
The present drear and overcast. 

And as they stood beneath the tree 
Listening, soothed and placidly, 
A youth came by, whose sunken eyes 
Spake of a load of miseries ; 
And he, arrested like the twain, 
Stopp'd to listen to the strain. 



Her marriage robes were fitted on, 
Her fair young face with blushes shone, 
When the destroyer smote her low, 
And changed the lover's bliss to woe. 

And these three listen'd to tke song, 
Silver-toned, and sweet, and strong, 
Which that child, the livelong day. 
Chanted to itself in j^lay: 
*' When the wind blows the blossoms fall ; 
But a good God reigns over all." 

The widow's lips impulsive moved ; 
The mother's grief, though unreproved, 
Soften'd, as her trembling tongue 
Repeated what the infant sung; 
And the sad lover, with a start, 
Conn'd it over to his heart. 

And though the child — if child it were, 

And not a seraiDli sitting there — 

Was seen no more, the sorrowing three 

Went on their way resignedly, 

The song still ringing in their ears — 

Was it the music of the spheres? 

Who shall tell ? They did not know, 
But in the midst of deepest woe 
The strain recurr'd, when sorrow grew, 
To warn them, and console them too : 
"When the wind blows the blossoms fall; 
But a good God reigns over all." 

Charles Mackay. 



e-«-%— e^- 



Death had bow'd the youthful head 
Of his bride beloved, his bride unwed: 



Devotioji in Childhood. 

^T is of the last importance to season 
the passions of a child with devotion, 
which seldom dies in*a mind that has 
received an early tinctnre of it. Thongh 
it may seem extinguished for a ^^•liile hj 
the cares of the world, the heats of youth, 
or the allurements of vice, it generally 
breaks out and discovers itself again as soon 
as discretion, consideration, age, or misfor- 
tunes have brought the man to liimself. 
The lire may be covered and overlaid, but 
cannot be entirely quenched and smothered 

Joseph xVddison. 



37 



H 

X:>::>::: 



MY BABY, 



;:>ir>«::x::j<::>o>«: >::><:->!:: J«:.:>:2»c>::::>:: 



K 

:xck:::3< 




UCH a little break 
in the sod ! 
So tiny to be a 
grave ! 
Oh ! how can I ren- 
der so soon to God 
The beautiful gift 
he gave I 
Must I put you 
away, my pet — 
My tender bud 
unblown— 

With the dew of the morning upon you, yet, 
And your blossom all unshown ? 

My heart is near to break, 

For the voice I shall not hear. 
For the clinging arms around my neck, 

And the footsteps drawing near. 
The tiny, tottering feet. 

Striving for mother's knee, 
For the lisping tones so sweet, 

And the baby's kiss to me. 

For the precious mother-name. 

And the touch of the little hand, 
O ! am I so very much to blame 

If I shrink from the sore demand? 
How shall I know her voice. 

Or the greeting of her eyes, 
'Mid the countless cherubs that rejoice, 

In the gardens of Paradise ? 

How shall I know my own, 

Where the air is white with wings — 
My babe, so soon from my bosom flown, 

To the angels' ministerings ? 
And this is the end of it all ! 

Of my waiting and my pa'i — 
Only a little funeral pall. 

And empty aruts again. 

O, baby ! my heart is sore 

For the love that was to be, 
For the untried dream of love, now o*er, 

'Twixt thee, my child, and me. 
Yet over this little head, 

Lying so still on niy knee, 
I thank my God for the bliss of the dead, 

For the joy of the soul set free. 

'Tis a weary world at best, 

This world that she will not know ; 

Would I waken her out of such perfect rest. 
For its sorrow and strife ? Ah, no I 



Escaped are its thorns and harms ; 

The only path she hath trod 
Is that which leads from the mother's arms 

Into the arms of God. — The Evangelist. . 

DOMESTIC BLISS. 

I am 
" A married lady of thirty odd." 
Every morning I see in their beds 
A " baker's dozen " of curly heads ; 
Every morning my slumbers greet 
The patter, patter, of twenty-six feet. 
Thirteen little hearts are always in a flutter, 
Till thirteen little mouths are filled with bread 

and butter. 
Thirteen little tongues are busy all day long, 
And thirteen little hands with doing something 
wrong. 

Till I fain am to do 
With an energy too, 
As did the old wonfan who lived in a shoe. 
And when my poor husband comes home from his 

work. 
Tired and hungry, and fierce as a Turk, 
What do you think is the picture he sees ? 
A legion of babies, all in a breeze. 
Jolmny a crying, 
And Lucy a sighing, 
And worn-out mamma, with he¥ hair all a flying, 
Strong and angry Stephen 

Beating little Nelly ; 
Willie in the pantry 
Eating currant jelly; 
Charlie strutting round in papa's Sunday coat; 
Harry at the glass, with a razor at his throat ; 
Robert gets his fingers crushed when Susy shuts 

the door, 
Mitigates their aching with a forty pounder roar ; 
Baby at the coal-hod hurries to begin 
Throwing in his mite to the universal din. 
Alas! my lord and master, being rather weak of 

nerve, he 
Begins to lose his patience in the stunning topsy- 
turvy. 
And then the frightened little ones all fly to me 

for shelter, 
And so the drama closes 'mid a general belter* 
skelter. 

I'll give you my name. 
Lest you think me a myth. 
Yours, very respectfully, 

Mks. John Smith, 



38 




1^* 







HO took him on 
the other side ?'^ 
A pair of soft blue 
eyes, full of ten- 
derness and tears, 
looked up into 
mine. " On the 
other side ! What 
do 



darling T 



you mean, my 
and I 
looked \yondering 
at the ehild. ^^ Baby, I mean. He was so 
small and weak, and had to go all alone. 
Who took him on the other side?'^ 
" Angels,'^ I answered, as steadily as I could 
speak, for the child's question moved me 
deeply, — '■'' loving angels, who took him up 
tenderly and laid his head softly on their 
bosoms, and sang to him sweeter songs than 
he had ever heard in this world.'' '^ But 
every one will be strange to him. I'm 
afraid he'll be sieved for mother and nurse 
and me." " No, dear. The Saviour, who 
was once a baby in this world, is there ; 
and the angels who are nearest to him take 
all the little children who leave our side, 
and love and care for them just as if they 
were their own. When baby passed through 
to the other side, one of these angels held 
him by the hand all the way, and he was 
not in the least afraid ; and when the light 
of heaven broke upon his eyes, and he saw 
the new beauty of the new world into which 
he had entered, his little heart was full of 
gladness." " You are sure of that ?" 
The grief had almost fixded out of the 
child's countenance. " Yes, dear, very sure. 
The Lord, who so tenderly loves little 
children, Avho took them in his arms and 
blessed them when he was on earth, who 
said that ' their angels do always behold the 
face of my Father,' is more careful of the 
babes who go to him than the tenderest 



mother could possibly be." "I am so 
glad !" said the child ; ^' and it makes me 
feel so much better ! Dear baby ! I didn't 
know who would take him on the other- 
side." — Cldldren^s Hour. 



TO AKTHUK, ASLEEP. 

STILLY, oh, very stilly, with clasp'd hands, 
That would hush down the beating of iny 
heart, 
T stand and watch thy slumbers. Eound thee now, 
Like silver clouds flung on a summer sky. 
The snowy curtains tremble, and betwixt 
Their loopings — a baptismal scent of heaven^ 
Plashes the sunshine on thy face and hair. 
O bud of one brief summer, by that smile, 
Like light on opening roses, do I know 
The angels are with thee, — that those blue eyes 
Which break up to me in their sudden joy, 
(As I have pray'd God's seraphs might some day,) 
Still watch the radiance of those sapphire hills, 
From which so late thou'st wandered. 

One white hand, 
Like an unfolding lily, is crush' d up 
Amid the clustering curls, whose golden hues 
Were caught among thy mother's. 

Oh, n?ost fair 
And heaven-like picture that the world can throw 
Along its changeful canvas, — child asleep ! 
Through my dim tears, I stand to-day and watch 
Mournful above thy rest ; I who have walk'd 
Out from the gates of childhood, and who wear 
The " burden and the weariness of life " 
On heart and forehead. 

What of joy or good 
(Stringing along this hush the future's pearls) 
Shall shape my prayer for thee, that life may lay 
Her gold, her myrrh, and incense at thy fcQt, — 
Her jewels round thy brow? 

Not these — not these — 
Be my heart's asking. May our Father lead 
Thy young feet tenderly across the hills 
To the " far country," and it shall be well,— 
Well with thee, sweetest, even if thy life 
Take but the key-note here, and sing the song 
Upon the pur])le mountains! So sleep on, 
Thy svni'.e tlie loving chorus of my prayer: — 
"/n life or death may God he iri'h the child r' 

Virginia F. Townsend. 



39 




DELICATE child, pale and prematurely wise, was com- 
plaining, on a hot morning, that the dew-drops had been 
too hastily snatched away, and not allowed to glitter on 
the flowers, like other happier dew-drops that live the 
whole night through, and sparkle in the moon- 
light, and through the morning, onwards to 
noonday. " The sun," said the child, " has chased 
them away w^ith his heat, or swallowed them in 
his Wrath." Soon after came rain and a rainbow ; 
whereupon his father pointed upwards. ^' See !" 
said he, '' there stands thy dew-drops, gloriously 
reset, a glittering jewelry in the heavens; and 
the clownish foot tramples on them no more. By 
this, my child, thou art taught that what withers 
on earth blooms again in heaven." Thus the 
father spoke, and knew not that he spoke pre- 
figuring words ; for, soon after, the delicate child 
with the morning brightness of his earthly wisdom, was exhaled, like a dew-drop, into 
heaven. Jean Paul Richter. 



IS THERE ROOM IN ANGEL LAND? 



These lines were -written after hearing the following 
touching incident related by a minister : A mother, who 
was preparing some flour to bake into bread, left it for 
a moment, when little Mary, with childish curiosity to 
see what it was, took hold of the dish, when it fell to 
the floor, spilling the contents. The mother struck, the 
child a severe blow, saying, with anger, that she was 
always in the way. Two weeks after, little Mary sick- 
ened and died. On her death-bed, while delirious, she 
asked her mother if there would be room for her among 
the angels. " I was always in your way, mother ; you 
had no room for little Mary ! And will I be in the 
angels' way? Will they have room for me?" The 
broken-hearted mother then felt no sacrifice would be 
too great, could she have saved her child. 

Is there room among the angels 

For the spirit of your child ? 
Will they take your little Mary 
• In their loving arms so mild? 

Will they ever love me fondly, 

As my story-books have said? 
Will they find a home for Mary — 

Mary, numbered with the dead ? 
Tell me truly, darling mother ! 

Is there room for such as me? 
Will I gain the home of spirits, 

And the shining angels see? 



I have sorely tried you, mother, 

Been to you a constant care. 
And you will not miss me, mother, 

When I dwell among the fair; 
For you have no room for Mary ; 

She \vas ever in your way ; 
And she fears the good will shun her I 

Will they, darling mother, say? 
Tell me — lell me truly — mother, 

Ere life's closing hour doth come. 
Do you think that they will keep me, 

In the shining angels' home ? 

I was not so wayward, mother, 

Not so very — very bad, 
But that tender love would nourish, 

And make Mary's heart so glad! 
Oh ! I yearned for pure affection, 

In this world of bitter woe ; 
And I yearn for bliss immortal. 

In the land where I must go ! 
Tell me once again, dear mother, 

Ere you take the parting kiss. 
Will the angels bid me welcome, 

To that land of perfect bliss ? 



40 




WISH you 

wouldn't call me 
Dot, John. I 
don't like it/' 
said Mrs. Peery- 
bingle, pouting 
in a way that 
clearly showed 
she did like it, 
very much. 
"Why, what else are you," returned 
John, looking down upon her with a smile, 
and giving her waist as light a squeeze as 
his huge hand and arm could give. " A 
dot and — " here he glanced at the baby, 
" a dot and carry — I won't say it, for fear 
I should spoil it ; but I was very near a 
joke. I don't know as ever I was nearer." 
He was often near to something or other 
very clever, by his own account; this 
lumbering, slow, honest John ; this John 
so heavy, but so light of spirit ; so rough 
upon the surface, but so gentle at the core ; 
so dull without, so quick within ; so stolid, 
but so good ! Oh, Mother Xature, give thy 
children the true poetry of heart that hid 
itself in this poor Carrier's breast — he was 
but a Carrier, by the way — and we can 
bear to have them talking prose, and lead- 
ing lives of prose ; and bear to bless thee for 
their company. 

It was pleasant to see Dot, with her little 
figure, and her baby in h^ arms — a very 
doll of a baby — glancing Avith a coquettish 
tlioughtfulness at the fire, and inclining her 
delicate little head just enough on one side 
to let it rest in an odd, half-natural, half- 
affected, wholly nestling and agreeable, 
manner, on the great rugged figure of the 
Carrier. It was pleasant to see him, with 



adapt his rude support to her slight need, 
and make his burly middle-age a leaning- 
staff not inappropriate to her blooming 
youth. It was pleasant to observe how 
Tilly Slowboy, waiting in the back -ground 
for the baby, took special cognizance 
(though in her earliest teens) of this group- 
ing ; and stood with her mouth and eyes 
wide open, and her head thrust forward, 
taking it in as if it were air. Xor was it 
less agreeable to observe how John the 
Carrier, reference being made by Dot to the 
aforesaid baby, checked his hand when on 
the point of touching the infant, as if he 
thought he might crush it; and bending 
down, surveyed it from a safe distance with 
a kind of puzzled pride, such as an amiable 
mastiff might be supposed to show, if he 
found himself, one day, the father of a 
young canary. 

Charles Dickens. 



ILLUSIOJVS. 



his tender awkwardness, endeavoring to 



WHEN the boys come into my yard 
for leave to gather horse-chestnuts, 
I own I enter into Nature's game, and 
affect to grant the permission reluctantly, 
feeling that any moment they will find out 
the imposture of that showy chaff. But 
this tenderness is quite unnecessary ; the 
enchantments are laid on very thick. Their 
young life is thatched witli them. Bare 
and grim to tears is the lot of the children 
in the hovel I saw yesterday ; yet not the 
less thoy hang it round with frippery 
romance, like the children of the happiest 
fortune. 

R. W. Eme»son. 



41 



ADVAKTAGJE OF CHILDRER. 



ADVANTAGE OF CHILDREN. 



HAT would 
an erigine 
be to a si lip 
if it were 
lying loose 
in the hull? 
It must be 
fastened to 
it whh bolts 
and screws before it can propel the vessel. 
Now a childless man is like a loose engine. 
A man must be bolted and screwed to the 
coramnuity before he can work well for its 
advancement; and there are no such screws 
and bolts as children. 

Henry Ward Beecher. 




UNES ON THE DEATH GE A CHiLB. 

iG) EHOLD a seraph soaring 
<C/ From out our weary world ; 
In robes of white, 
One starlit night, 
With spirit- wings unfurled, 
He took his flight 
To the gates of light, 
To make his dwelling there, 
Seraphic songs outpouring 
Upon the silent air. 

Oh, how he loved thee, mother, 
Thy bosom was his bed ; 

'Twas sweet to rest 

On thy soft breast 
The little weary head 5 

To feci thee press 

With fond caress 
The bright and radiant brow, 
But the blessed " Elder Brother" 
Will cherish " baby " now. 

Life lay, untrod, before him. 
The future all unknown ; 
How might the years 
Have flowed with tears, 



Till laughter changed to moan ! 

How might the strife 

Of human life 
Have brought his soul to harm I 
But now a shield is o'er him — 
The Everlasting Arm ! 

The paths of bliss unbounded 
His feet already tread — 

The heavenly fields 

Whose harvest yields 
The true and living bread. 

On fruitful hills 

By placid rills 
The lambs of Jesus feed ; 
By heaven's wealth surrounded, 
What can he ever need ? 

Dear Aveeping father, mother, 
How could he longer wait 

When Jesus calls ? 

From jasper walls 
Swung wide the golden gate. 

But he will stand 

At God's right hand, 
To wait and watch for you ; 
And there will be another 
To bid you " welcome " too. 

And so he left you, winging 
His upward flight afar, 

Till, through the night, 

There shone the light 
Of one more radiant star ! 

Through countless years 

No bitter tears 
Shall dim those lustrous eyes ; 
No sighs shall mar the singing 
Beneath those cloudless skies! 



THE FOOE MAN'S RICHES. 

I remember a great man coming into my 
house at Waltham, and, seeing all my chil^ 
dren standing in the" order of their age and 
stature, he said, " These are they that make 
rich men poor." But he straight received 
this answer, " Nay, my lord, these are they 
that make a poor man rich ; for there is not 
one of these whom we would part with for 
all your Avealth.'' 



Bishop Hali 



42 



^■ OOOOOO gg 



EARLY SPRING. 




IrOM the pod 



no crocus peeps, 



And the snow-drop scarce is seen^ 
And the daffodil vet sleeps 

In its shelt'ring sheath of green ; 
A"et the naked oi;roves amono; 

Is an homeless music heard, 
And a welcoming is sung, 

Till the leafless boughs are stirred 
With a spirit and a life 

AVhich is floating all around ; 
And the covert glades are rife 

With the new a^^'akened sound 
Of the birds, whose voices pour 

In an interrupted strain, 
As they scarcely were secure 

That the Spring was come again. 
Soon the seasonable flowei's 

Will a glad assurance bring. 
To their fresh and leafy bowers 

Of the presence of the SjDring ; 
And these snatches of delight 

Are the prelude of a song 
That will daily gather might, 

And endure the Summer lons". 



E C. •VRtLSGK 



^^ELCOME, pale Primrose ! starting up between 
Dead matted leaves of ash and oak that strew 
The every lawn, the wood, and spinney through, 

'Mid creeping moss and ivy's darker green ; 

How much thy presence beautifies the ground ! 

How sweet thy modest unaffected ]-)ride 

Glows on the sunny bank and wood's warm side ! 

And where thy fairy flowei-s in groups are found, 

The schoolboy roams enchantedly along, 

Plucking the fairest with a rude delight : 

While the meek shepherd stops liis simple song, 

To gaze a moment on the pleasing sight ; 

O'erjoyed to see the flowers that truly bring 

The welcome news of sweet returning Spring. 

43 



John Clake 




thou bright thing, fresh from the hand of God ; 
The motions of thy dancing limbs are swayed 
By the unceasing music of thy being ! 
Nearer I seem to God when looking on thee. 
'Tis ages since He made His youngest star, 
His hand was on thee as 'twere yesterday, 
Thou later revelation ! Silver stream. 
Breaking with laughter from the lake divine 
Whence all things flow. O bright and singing babe, 
What wilt thou be hereafter ? 

Alexander Smith. 



"h-hs 



iBElil AMI Ml HTOl OWli 




HE Master has come over Jordan/' 
Said Hannah, the mother, one day, 
''* He is healing the people who throng 
him 
With a touch of his finger, they say. 

" And now I shall carry the children — 
Little Rachel, and Samuel, and John, 

I shall carry the baby, Esther, 
For the Lord to look upon." 



The father looked at her kindly, 
But he shook his head and smiled ; 

" Now, who but a doting mother 
Would think of a thing so wild ? 

" If the children were tortured by demons, 
Or dying of fever, 'twere well, 

Or had they the taint of the leper, 
Like many in Israel." 

" Nay, do not hinder me, Nathan — • 

I feel such a burden of care ; 
If I carry it to the Master, 

Perhaps I shall leave it there. 

**If he lay his hand on the children, 
My heart will be lighter, I know, 

For a blessing forever and ever 
Will follow them as they go." 



So over the hills to Judah, 

Along by the vine-rows green. 
With Esther asleep on her bosom, 

And Rachel her brothers between, 

'Mong the people who hung on his teaching,. 
Or waited his touch and his word, 

Through the row of proud Pharisees listeninr:;, 
She pressed to the foot of the Lord. 

"Now, why shouldst thou hinder the Master/ 

. Said Peter, " with children like these ? 
Seest not how, from morning till evening. 
He teacheth, and healeth disease?" 

Then Christ said, "Forbid not the children- 
Permit them to come unto me." 

And he took in his arms little Esther, 
And Rachel he set on his knee ; 

And the heavy heart of the mother 

Was lifted all earth-care above. 
And he laid his hands on the brothers, 

And blest them with tenderest love ; 

As he said of the babes in his bosom, 
" Of such is the kingdom of heaven ;" 

And strength for all duty and trial 
That hour to her spirit was given. 

Julia Gill. 



44 






HAVE a son, a little son, a boy just five I do not think his light-blue eye is, like his 

years old, brother's, keen. 

With eyes of thoughtful earnestness and Nor his brow so full of childish thought as his 

mind of gentle mould. hath ever been ; 

They tell me that unusual grace in all his But his little heart's a fountain pure of kind and 
^ ways appears, tender feeling, 

That my child is grave and wise of heart beyond And his every look's a gleam of light, rich depths 

his childish years. of love revealing. 

I cannot say how this may be ; I know his face is When he walks with me, the country folk, who 

fair — pass us in the street. 

And yet his chiefest comeliness is his sweet and Will shout for joy, and bless my boy, he looks so 

serious air ; mild and sweet. 

I know his heart is kind and fond, I know he A playfellow is he to all; and yet, with cheerful 

loveth me, tone. 

But loveth yet his mother more with grateful Will sing his little song of love when left to sport 

fervency. alone. 

But that which others most admire is the thought His presence is like sunshine sent to gladden 

that fills his mind — home and hearth, 

The food for grave, inquiring speech he every- To comfort us in all our griefs, and sweeten all 

where doth find. our mirth. 

Strange questions doth he ask of me when we Should he grow up to riper years, God grant his 

together walk ; heart may prove 

He scarcely thinks as children think, or talks as As sweet a home for heavenly grace as now for 

children talk ; earthly love ; 

Nor cares he much for childish sports, dotes not And if, beside his grave, the tears our aching eyes 

on bat or ball, must dim, 

But looks on manhood's ways and works, and God comfort us for all the love that we shall lose 

aptly mimics all. in him. 

His little heart is busy still, and oftentimes per- 

„,.. , , , , , . ^ -, n -.1 have a son, a third sweet son, his age I cannot 

With thoughts about this world of ours, and , ii 

thoughts about the next. -o ^.v, ' i ^ i, i ^.i i 

TT 1 , , . , , , , , , , -T t>i^ they reckon not by years and months where 

He kneels at his dear mother s knee ; she teacheth r . i. j n 

. . he IS gone to dwell. 

. - V 'Yf To us, for fourteen anxious months, his infant 

And strange and sweet and solemn then are the m 

,*',.,, .„ smiles were given, 

words which he will say. ai^-i, i,v,j^ ^^ 4. ^^ j ^* 

„, , , , ■, -, .^\ ■, , And then he bade farewell to earth, and went to 

Uh, should my gentle child be spared to man- r . • r 

I -.J -,- 11 v C 111 llGcl* vO. [ 

hood's years, like me, t 4.^nii.^ -i- i^-iii 

. , ,. •'- '. ' , , .„ , 1 cannot tell what form is his, what looks he 

A noner and a wiser man I trust that he will be : ,i 

weareth now 

And when I look into his eyes and stroke his ^r i i '• i i. i i • i • • 

^, , - , , -^ Nor guess how bright a glory crowns his shining 

thoughtful brow, ] h r 

I dare not think what I should feel were I to lose m .i ' i + ^.t! .. ^n i • ■ ^ i *i u^• 

,. The thoughts that fill his sinless soul, the buss 
him now. i • i i i i.i r i 

which he doth feel, 

Are number'd with the sacred things which God 

I have a son, a second son, a simple child of three ; will not reveal. 

VII not declare how bright and fair his little fea- But I know (for God hath told mc this) that he is 

tures be, now at rest, 

How silver sweet those tones of his when he Where other blessed infants be — on their Saviour's 

prattles on my knee ; loving breaat. 

45 



THL' THREE SONS. 



I know his spirit feels no more this weary load 

of flesh, 
Bat his sleep is bless'd with endless dreams of joy 

for ever fresh. 
I know the angels fold him close beneath their 

glittering wings, 
A.nd soothe him with a song that breathes of 

heaven's divinest things. 
I know that we shall meet our babe (his mother 

dear and I) 
Where God for aye shall wipe away all tears from 

every eye. 
Whate'er befalls his brethren twain, his bliss can 

never cease : 
Their lot may here be grief and fear, but his is 

certain peace. 
It may be that the tempter's wiles their souls 

from bliss may sever ; 
But, if our own poor faith fail not, he must be 

ours for ever. 
When we thinl: of what our darling is, and what 

we still must be — 
When we mus(^ on that world's perfect bliss and 

this world's mi^ery — 
When we groan beneath this load of sin, and feel 

this grief and pain — 
Oh, we'd rather lost- our other two than have him 

here again ! John AIoulteie. 

N tip-toe I entered the bed-room 

of baby ; 
And trembling I parted the 

gossamer curtains 
Where baby lay, fair as a fresh 

morning glory. 

Like petals of -vuest and pinkest pofunin*;. 
Four delicate lingers crept out of their nestling, 
Transparent and chubby, they rest on the crib's 

edge, 
And draping the fingers, a fringe of crochet- work, 
As flossy and light as a net-web of snow lace, 
Lay, kissing them daintily — ever so daintily ! 
Nails soft and so tiny, and tinted like pink-buds, 
Looked up to me temptingly—" ever so cunning ;" 
And asked me to kiss them, and oh ! how I longed to, 
But dare not, for baby was smiling so sweetly 
I knew he beheld then ah angel-ftice near him. 

Loose ringed, on his temples of pure alabaster, 
Lay curls of the softest and lightest of texture, 
As sketched by a crayon of delicate gold-tint ; 
Such curls as the gods gave to Cupid and Psyche ! 




Those kissable curls, with their live, springing 
tendrils. 

Came up to my lips, and went down to my heart- 
strings. 

Those eyelids so filmy, translucent as amber, 
Were colored and toned by the blue eyes beneath 

them, 
To softest of purple. marvellous eyelids ! 
Ah ! what is this clinging so close to mv heart- 
string, 
'Tis fear — that I know by the thrill in my bosom? 
'Tis born of these ringlets and fingers and eyelids : 
Born of this beauty too precious for mortals ; 
It tells me I look on the face of an angei 
That lies there deceiving my soul by concealing 
Its pinions beneath the blue waves of the velvet. 

I'll wake him ! the darling ! with kisses I'll wake 

him. 
There ! there ! I have reddened the white brow 

of baby. 
Between those two limnings of delicate lace work — 
The rarest of eyebrows ; his laugh reassures me ! 
I'll crush him down hard, wings and all, on my 

bosom, Knickerbocker. 

OOOOOO ^ pCXDO O O 

"LITTLE CHILDREN.^^ 

EEP a guard on your words, my darlings, 
For words are wonderful things, 
They are sweet, like the bees' fresh 
honey. 
Like the bees, they have terribl** 
stings. 
They can bless, like the warm, glad sunshine, 

And brighten a lonely life, 
They can cut, in the strife of anger, 
Like an open, two-edged knife. 

Let them pass through your lij)s unchallenged. 

If their errand is true and kind ; 
If they come to support the weary, 

To comfort and help the blind. 
If a bitter, revengeful spirit 

Prompts the words, let them be unsaid ; 
They may flash through a brain like lightnings 

Or fall on a heart like lead. 

Keep them back if they're cold and cruel, 

Under bar, and lock, and seal ; 
The wounds they make, my darlings. 

Are always slow to heal. 
May peace guard your lives, and ever. 

From this time of your early youth. 
May the words that you daily utter 

Be the beautiful words of truth. 




46 





^tCS any weak soul fright- 
i/i^ ened that I should write 
of the Religion of the 
boy ? How, indeed, could 
I cover the field of his 
moral or intellectual 
growth, if I left unnoticed 
those dream of futurity 
and of goodness, whichj 
come sometimes to his 
quieter moments, and 
oftener to his hours of vexation and trouble? 
It would be as wise to describe the season of 
Spring with no note of the silent influences of 
that burning Day-god which is melting day 
by day the shattered ice-drifts of Winter — 
which is filling every bud Avitli succulence, 
and painting one flower with crimson, and 
another with white. 

I know there is a feeling — by much too 
general, as it seems to me — that the subject 
may not be approached except through the 
dicta of certain ecclesiastical bodies, and 
that the lano-uaofe which touches it must not 
be that e very-day language Avhich mirrors 
the vitality of our thought, but should 
have some twist of that theologic manner- 
ism, which is as cold to the boy as to the 
busy man of the world. 

I know very well that a great many good 
souls will call levity what I call honesty, 
and will abjure that familiar handling of 
the boy's lien upon Eternity which my 
story will show. But I shall feel sure, 
that, in keei)ing true to Nature with word 
and with thought, I shall in no way offend 
against those highest truths to wdiich all 
truthfulness is kindred. 

You iKwe Christian teachers, who speak 
always reverently of the Bible ; you grow 



up in the hearing of daily prayers ; nay, 
you are perhaps taught to say them. 

Sometimes they have a meaning, and 
sometimes they have none. They have a 
meaning when your heart is troubled, when 
a grief or a wrong weighs upon you : then 
the keeping of the Father, which you 
implore, seems to come from the bottom 
of your soul ; and your eye suffuses with 
such tears of feeling as you count holy, and 
as you love to cherish in your memory. 

But they have no meaning when some 
trifling vexation angers you, and a distaste 
for all about you breeds a distaste for all 
above you. In the long hours of toilsome 
days little thought comes over you of the 
morning prayer; and only when evening 
deepens its shadows, and your boyish vexa- 
tions fatigue you to thoughtfulness, do you 
dream of that coming and endless night, to 
which — they tell you — prayer softens the 
way. 

Sometimes upon a Summer Sunday, when 
you are wakeful upon your scat in church, 
with some strong worded preacher who says 
things that half fright you, it occurs to you 
to consider Iioav much goodness you are 
made of; and whether there be enough of 
it after all to carry you safely away from 
the clutch of Evil ? And straightway you 
reckon up those friendships where your 
heart lies; you know you are a true and 
honest friend to Frank ; and you love your 
mother, and your father, as for Nelly, 
Heaven knows, you could not contrive a 
way to love her better than you do. 

You dare not take nuicli credit to your- 
self for the love of little Madge — })artl}^ 
because you have sometimes caught yourself 
trying — not to love her ; and partly because 



47 



BOY RELIGION. 



the black-eyed Jenny comes in the way. 
Yet you can find no command in the Cate- 
chism to love one girl to the exclusion of all 
other girls. It is somewhat doubtful if you 
ever do find it. But as for loving some 
half-dozen you could name, whose images 
drift through your thought, in dirty, salmon- 
colored frocks, and slovenly shoes, it is 
quite impossible ; and suddenly this thought, 
coupled with a lingering remembrance of 
the pea-green pantaloons, utterly l)reaks 
down your hopes. 

Yet you muse again, — there are plenty 
of good people, as the times go, who have 
their dislikes, and who speak them too. 
Even the sharp-talking clergyman you have 
heard say some very sour things about his 
landlord, who raised his rent the last year. 
And you know that he did not talk as 
mildly as he does in the church, when he 
found Frank and yourself quietly filching 
a few of his peaches through the orchard 
fence. 

But your clergyman will say perhaps, 
with what seems to you quite unnecessary 
coldness, that goodness is not to be reckoned 
in your chances of safety ; that there is a 
Higher Goodness, whose merit is All- 
Sufficient. This puzzles you sadly; nor 
will you escape the puzzle, until, in the 
presence of the Home altar, which seems 
to guard you, as the Lares guarded Roman 
children, you feel — ^you cannot tell how — ■ 
that good actions must spring from good 
sources ; and that those sources must lie in 
that Heaven toward which your boyish 
spirit yearns, as you kneel at your mother's 
side. 

Conscience too is all the while approving 
you for deeds well done ; and — wicked as 
you fear the preacher might judge it — you 
cannot but found on those deeds a hope that 
your prayer at night flows more easily, 
more freely, and more holily toward " Our 
Father in Heaven.'^ Nor indeed later in 



life — ^whatever may be the ill-advised ex- 
pressions of human teachers — will you ever 
find that Duty performed j and generoics 
endeavor will stand one whit in the way 
either of Faith or of Love. Striving to 
be good is a very direct road toward Good- 
ness, and if life be so tempered by high 
motive as to make actions always good, 
Faith is unconsciously won. 

Another notion that disturbs you very 
much, is your positive dislike of long ser- 
mons, and of such singing as they have 
when the organist is away. You cannot 
get the force of that verse of Dr. Watts 
which likens heaven to a never-ending Sab- 
bath ; you do hope — though it seems a half 

wicked hope — that old Dr. will not 

be the preacher. You think that your heart 
in its best moments craves for something 
more lovable. You suggest this perhaps to 
some Sunday teacher, who only shakes his 
head sourly, and tells you it is a thought 
that the Devil is putting in your brain. It 
strikes you oddly that the Devil should be 
using a verse of Dr. Watts to puzzle you I 
But if it be so, he keeps it sticking by your 
thought very pertinaciously, until some 
simple utterance of your mother about the 
Love that reigns in the other world seems 
on a sudden to widen Heaven, and to waft 
away your doubts like a cloud. 

It excites your wonder not a little to find 
people, who talk gravely and heartily 
of the excellence of sermons and of church- 
going, sometimes fall asleep under it all. 
And you Avonder — if they really like preach- 
ing so well — why they do not buy some 
of the minister's old manuscripts, and read 
them over on week-days, or invite the 
clergyman to preach to them in a quiet way 
in private. 

Ah, Clarence, you do not yet kno\\ 

the poor weakness of even maturest man- 
hood, and the feeble gropings of the soul 
toward a souFs paradise in the best of the 



48 




RETURNING HOxME. 



BOY RELIGION. 



world ! You do not yet know either, that 
ignorance and fear will be thrusting their 
untruth and false show into the very essen- 
tials of Religion. 

Again you wonder, if the clergjmien are 
all such very good men as you are taught 
to believe, why it is that every little while 
people will be trying to send^them oif, and 
very anxious to prove that, instead of being 
so good, they are in fact very stupid and 
bad men. At that day you have no clear 
conceptions of the distinction between stu- 
l)idity and vice, and think that a good man 
must necessarily say very eloquent things. 
You will find yourself sadly mistaken on 
this point, before you get on very far in 
life. 

Heaven, when your mother peoples it 
with friends gone, and little Charlie, and 
tliat better Friend who, she says, took 
Charlie in his arms, and is now his Father 
above the skies, seems a place to be loved 
and longed for. But to think that Mr. 
Such-an-one, Avho is only good on Sundays, 
will be there too, — and to think of his 
talking as he does of a place which you are 
sure he would spoil if he were there, — 
puzzles you again ; and you relapse into 
wonder, doubt, and yearning. 

And there, Clarence, for the pres- 
ent, I shall leave you. A wide, rich heaven 
hangs above you, but it hangs very high. 
A wide, rough world is around you, and it 
lies very low ! 

I am assuming in these sketches no office 
of a teacher. I am seeking only to make 
a truthful analysis of the boyish thought 
and feeling. But having ventured thus far 
into what may seem sacred ground, T shall 
venture still farther, and clinch my matter 
with a moral. 

There is very much religious teaching, 
evei] in so good a country as Xew England, 
which is far too harsh, too drv, too cold for 
the heart of a boy. T^ong sermons, doc- 



trinal precepts, and such tediously-worded 
dogmas as were uttered by those honest 
but hard-spoken men, the Westminster 
Divines, fatigue, and puzzle, and dispirit 
him. 

They may be well enough for those 
souls whidi strengthen by task-work, or for 
those mature people whose iron habit of 
self-denial has made patience a cardinal 
virtue ; but they fiill (e.rperto crede) upon 
the unfledged faculties of the boy like a 
winter's rain upon spring flowers, — like 
hammers of iron upon lithe timber. They 
may make deep impression upon his moral 
nature, but tl;iere is great danger of a sad 
rebound. 

Is it absurd to suppose that some adapta- 
tion is desirable? And might not the 
teachings of that Eeligion, Avhich is the 
?e2:is of our moral beinjj, be inwrou":ht with 
some of those finer harmonies of speech and 
form which were given to wise ends, — and 
lure the boyish soul by something akin to 
that gentleness which belonged to the Naza- 
rene Teacher, and which provided not only 
meat for men, " but milk for babes " ? 

Donald G, Mitchell. 




THE DEAD BOY. 

E crossed the sill ; she pointed to the bedJ 
There lay her boy, his innocent curly 
head 

Nestled upon the pillow, and his face 
Lit with the solemn and unearthly grace 
That crowns but once the children of our race ; 
God gives it when he takes them— he was 
dead ! 
A broken toy, a bunch of withered flowers, 
In his thin hands were clasped, his breast 
above 
The last frail ties that to this world of ours 
Had linked the sufferers— save a mother's love. 



\V>f. Ai.LF.x Rttlei^, 



49 




iHIS is the baby I love 

The baby that can not talk ; 

The baby that can not walk 

The baby that just begins to creep ; 

The baby that's cuddled and 

rock'd to sleep 5 

Oh, this is the baby I lovel 



This is the baby I love ! 

The baby that's never cross ; 

The baby that papa can toss ; 
The baby that crows when held aloft ; 
The baby that's rosy and round and soft; 

Oh, this is the baby I love ! 

This is the baby I love ! 

The baby that laughs when I peep 

To see is it still asleep ; 
The baby that coos and frowns and blinks 
When left alone— as it sometimes thinks; 

Oh, this is the baby I lore ! 

This is the baby I love ! 

The baby that lies on my knee, 

And dimples and smiles on me 
While I strip it and bathe it and kiss it— Oh 
Till with bathing and kissing 'tis all aglow ; 

Yes, this is the baby I love ! 

This is the baby I love ! 

The baby all freshly dressed ; 

That, waking, is never at rest; 
That plucks at my collar and pulls my hair 
Till I look like a witch— but I do not care; 

Oh, this is the baby I love! 



This is the baby I love ! 

The baby that understands 

And dances with feet and hands. 
And a sweet, little, whinnying, eager cry, 
For the nice warm breakfast that waits it 
by; 

Oh, this is the baby I love I 



This is the baby I love! 

The baby that tries to talk ; 

The baby that longs to walk ; 
And oh, its mamma will wake some day 
To find that her baby has— rM?z aicay ! 

My baby !— the baby I love ! 

Haeriet M. KimbalIk 



THE ANGEL'S WHISPER. 

A superstition of great beauty prevails in Ireland, 
that, when a child smiles in Its sleep, it is " talking 
with angels." 

A baby was sleeping ; 

It's mother was weeping ; 
For her husband was far on the wild raging sea ; 

And the tempest was swelling 

Round the fisherman's dwelling; 
And she cried, " Dermot, darling, oh, come back 
to me!" 

Her beads while she number'd, 

The baby still slumber'd. 
And smiled in her face as she bended her knee : 

"Oh, blest be that warning. 

My child, thy sleep adorning, 
For I know that the angels are whispering with 
thee ! 

" And while they are keeping 

Bright watch o'er thy sleeping. 
Oh, pray to them softly my baby with me I 

And say thou wouldst rather 

They'd watch o'er thy father ! 
For I know that the angels are whispering tc 
thee." 



The dawn of the morning 
Saw Dermot returning. 
And the wife wept with joy her babe's father to 
see, 
And closely caressing 
Her child with a blessing, 
close Said, '"I knew that the angels were whispering 

to thee." 

Samuel Lovi:r. 

50 




1^-^ 







BABY'S TOES. 

H, the tiny, curled-up treasure, 
Just as cute as cute can be ! 
Come and help me count them, Madgie, 
While the baby bends to see ; 



Peeps demurely over dainty 

Skirts, drawn up to dimpled knees. 

Hey, my lady Lily ! whose two 
Roly-poly feet are these ? 

See the darling's round-eyed wonder- 
Does she really know they're hers? 

Now she reaches down to feel them, 
While new triumph in her stirs. 

Crow your fill, my little lady! 

Those are your own cunning toes, 
Round, and soft, and fat, and funny. 

And — how many? Madgie knows I 

Call them lily-buds to please her? 

Madgie says they are too pink, 
Say ten roses and two posies! 

Rather rose-buds, don't you think ? 

Come, wee toes, lie still ; be covered ; 

You've cut capers quite enough : 
If you don't, we'll kiss and put you 

Each one in a paper putf. 



HERE did you come from, baby dear? 
Out of the everywhere into here. 

AVhere did you get those eyes so blue? 
Out of the sky as I came through. 

What makes the light in them spark le and 

spin ? 
Some of the starry spikes left in. 

Where did you get that little tear? 
I found it waiting when I got here. 

"What makes your forehead so smooth and 

high ? 
A soft hand stroked it as I went by. 

What makes your cheek like a warm white 

rose ? 
I saw something better than any one knows. 

Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss ? 
Three angels gave me at once a kiss. 

Where did you get this pearly ear ? 
God spoke and it came out to hear. 

Where did you get those arms and hands ? 
Love made itself into bonds and bands. 

Feet, whence did you come, you darling 

things? 
From the same box as the cherub's wings. 

How did they all just come to be you ? 
God thought about me, and so I grew. 

But how did you come to us, you dear? 
God thought about you, and so I am here, 

George Macdonald. 



Except ye be converted, and become a.^ 

little children, ye shall not enter into tlie 

kingdom of heaven. 

Jesus Christ. 



51 




CASTLES IN THE AIR 




^^ TTn ' the yonns; dreamei b uig^^i^t, 

, His' ^vee chubby face and his touzie curly pow, 
^ ! r^h ng L nodding to the dancing lowe; 

He'll Wn'his rosy cheeks, and singe h- --f /-' 
Glowering at the imps wi' their castles .n the air. 

He sees muckle castles towering to the moon! 

He sees little sogers pu'ing them a doun . 
Worlds whombling up and down, bleezing wi a flare, , 

See how he loups! as they glimmer in ^e -- 
For a' sae sage he looks, what can the laddie ken . 
He's th nling upon naething, like mony mighty mev 
A wee thing m^ks us think, a sma' thing maks us stoe, 
Thlreare inair folk than him bigging castles in the air. 

Sic a ni<.ht in winter may weel mak him cauld: 

iTr Ire broken, heads are turu'd, wi' castles in the air. 

Hearts aie uioj^c , ^^^^^ Ballahttse. 



-,i^^3^*^§«- 



t^rfUTTERING, the winds at eve, with ^^'^^^^ 

m Blow hollow-blustering from the south. Subdued. 

The frost resolves into a trickling thaw. 

SpoVed the mountains shine; loose sleet descends, 

5nd floods the country round. The rive«. swell, 

Of bonds impatient. S"dd en fi-om the hills 

O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataracts, 

A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot -* once 

And where they rush, the wide resounding plam 

Is «rt one slimy waste. 



TaoHsa 



<><X><><><><><><><><>O<><><C><><><>OO<^OOOO0><><X>O<' x^ 

I flur Firgt-Born. | 




I-I APPY husband ! happy wife ! 
The rarest blessing Heaven drops 

down, 
The sweetest blossom in Spring's 
crown, 
Starts in the furrows of your life ! 

;-,^. God! what a towering height ye 

Y win, 

Who cry, " Lo, my beloved child I" 
And, life on life sublimely piled, 
Ye touch the heavens and peep within ! 

Look how a star of glory swims 
Down aching silences of space, 
Flushing the darkness till its face 

With beating heart of light o'erbrims ! 

So brightening came Babe Christabel, 
To touch the earth with fresh romance, 
And light a mother's countenance 

With looking on her miracle. 

With hands so flower-like, soft, and fair, 
She caught at life, with words as sweet 
As first spring violets, and feet 

As faery-light as feet of air. 

The father, down in Toil's murk mine, 
Turns to his wealthy world above. 
Its radiance, and its home of love ; 

And lights his life like sun-struck wine. 

The mother moves with queenlier tread; 
Proud sv/cU the globes of ripe delight 
Above her heart, so warm and white, 

A pillow for the baby-head ! 

Their natures deepen, well-like, clear, 

Till God's eternal stars are seen, 

For ever shining and serene, 
By eyes anointed Beauty's seer. 

A sense of glory all things took, — 
The red rose-heart of Dawn would blow, 
And Sundown's snm])tuous pictures show 

Babe-cherubs wearing their babe's look I 

And round their peerless one they clinig. 
Like bees about a flower's wine-cup; 
New thoughts and feelings blossom'd up, 

And hearts for very fulness sung 

Of what their budding babe shall grow, 
When the maid crimsons into wife, 
And crowns the summit of some life, 

Like Phosphor, with morn on its brow I 



And they should bless her for a br.de. 

Who, like a splendid saint alit 

In some heart's seventh heaven, should sit, 
As now in theirs, all glorified ! 

But O ! 'twas all too white a brow 
To flush with passion that doth fire 
With Hymen's torch its own death-pyre, — 

So pure her heart was beating now ! 

And thus they built their castles brave 
In faery lands of gorgeous cloud ; 
They never saw a little white shroud. 

Nor guess' d how flowers may mask the grave. 

Gerald Massey.- 

©lE^M, MY BABY, 

'OTHER'S baby, rock and rest. 
Little birds are fast asleep. 
Close beneath her mother-breast. 
Safe the bird her brood will keep. 
Oh ! my nestling, mother sings. 
Close within the mother-arms, 
Fold thy little, unfledged wings. 
Safe from any rude alarms. 

Sweet, my baby, on my breast. 
Dream your happy dreams and rest. 
Rest, oh ! resf. 

Ah ! my baby, from the nest 

Little birds will some day fly 
To the east and to the west, 

Wild their pretty wings to try. 
But, fly they fast, my bird, or far. 

Never can they find the spot. 
Under sun or any star. 

Where the mother-love is not. 

Sweet, my baby, on my breast 
Dream your happy dreams and rest. 
Rest, oh ! rest. 

Oh ! my baby, mother prays, 

As she clasps you closer still. 
All sweet things for coming days, • 

And not any earthly ill. 
Always, child, remember this; 

Mother's heart is warm and true, 
And she tells you, with a kiss, 
There'll be always room for yon. 
Sweet, my baby, on my breast. 
Dream your ha]>py dreams and rest. 
Rest, oh ! rest. 

Eben E. Rexfoedw 



53 



Little martj's BemeU 




larks sing out to the 
thrushes, 
And thrushes sing to the 
sky; 
Sing from your nest in the 
bushes, 
^^ An d sing wherever you fly ; 
For I'm sure that never an- 
other 
Such secret was told unto you— 
I've just got a baby brother ! 

And I wish that the whole world knew. 

I have told the buttercups, truly, 

And the clover that grows by the way ; 
And it pleases me each time, newly, 

When I think of it during the day. 
And I said to myself: " Little Mary, 

You ought to be good as you can, 
For the sake of the beautiful fairy 

That brought you the wee little man." 

I'm five years old in the summer. 

And I'm getting quite large and tall ; 
Put I thought till I saw the new-comer. 

When I looked in the glass, I was small. 
And I rise in the morning quite early, 

To be sure that the baby is here. 
For his hair is so soft and curly, ^ 

And his hands so tiny and dear! 

I stop in the midst of my pleasure— 

I'm so happy I can not play— 
And keep peeping in at my treasure. 

To see how much he gains in a day. 
But he doesn't look much like growing. 

Yet I think that he will in a year, 
And I wish that the days would be going. 

And the time when he walks would be here 

Oh, larks ! sing out to the thrushes, 
And thrushes, sing as you soar; 

For I think, when another spring blushes, 
I can tell you a great deal more : 



I shall look from one to the other, 

And say: " Guess who Fm bringing to you?' 
And you'll look— and see— he's my brother! 

And you'll sing, '' Little Mary was true." 
Mes. L. C. Whiton 



MOTHER GOOSE. 
/ mELL me a story, mamma, 
I One that is not very long, 
I am getting so tired and sleepy, 
Or sing me a little song — 
Something about the boy in blue 

Tha,t watched the cows and sheep, 
Who ought to get up and blow the horn, 

But he lies in the hay asleep." 
And I answered with quick impatience, 

While he hung his sleepy head, 
" No, not a story or song to-night, 

Bertie must go to bed." 
But after the room was silent, 
And the weary boy asleep, 
And never a sound came on my ears 
Save the lonely cricket's peep. 

The voice with the tone of pleading 

Kept coming again and again, 
" Tell me a story or sing me a song," 

Till I could not bear the pain ; 
So I went with stealthy footstep 

To see how my darling slept ; 
Weak and foolish though it may seem, 

I knelt by the bed and wept, 

To think that I had refused him 

The song that he loved so well, 
And refused the simple story 

That none but a mother could tell. 
And I said, " Sleep on, sweet dreamer; 

Fear not the cows and the sheep ; 
Dream that you lie in the meadow, 
• Under the hay asleep. 

All too soon you will waken. 

To watch o'er the field of corn ; 
All too soon will the sheep get in. 

Though you bravely blow your horn." 

Mrs. D. M. Jordah. 

54 



THE "SWEETEST SPOT." 




tiis "iwiittif wm. 



rai^p^S^ipS|HE sweetest spot in the house 
yj^^^.ui^M H to me 

Is the spot which holds my 
4 (S^^^^^St': I treasure wee. 
^ il^±'^^^<?v^As f^ What is my treasure ? Come 
:;u.l see — 

' ■ 1 y a blue-eyed baby. 
Ihily a bundle of dimples and 
love 

Dropped in my arms from somewhere above; 
A white-winged, cooing, and nestling dove, 
Or — a bundle of mischief, maybe. 

Now cieeping here, now creeping there, 
Calling me hither and everywhere ; 
Playing with sunbeams on the floor, 
Cooing-" a-gooing" over and o'er; 
Climbing up and clambering down, 
Bumi)ing and. bruising his tiny crown; 
Sticking his toes through the dainty socks, 
Soiling and tearing his dainty frocks ; 
Falling and ciying and catching his breath. 
Till mamma is frightened almost to death ; 
Laughing and shouting in frolic and play, 
Having a world of his nonsense to say; 
Showing the dimples in cheek and in chin, 
Where frolic and mischief peep out and in ; 
Asking for kisses and getting them, too, 
On cheek and on chin and on eyes so blue ; 
Ready for play when the sunbeams rise, 
Ready for sleep with the twilight skies ; 
And the sweetest spot in the house, you see, 
Is the spot which holds my treasure wee — 
]My blue-eyed baby, my bundle of love, 
My white-winged, cooing, and nestling dove; 
And long may he find his haven of rest 
In his mother's arms, his mother's breast. 

]\rAEY D. Brine. 



Nor the haze on the hill in noon-day hours, 
Blue as the eyes of this baby of ours. 

There's not a murmur of wakening bird, 
The clearest, sweetest, that ever was heard 
In the tender hush of the dawn's still hours, 
Sweet as the voice of this baby of ours. 

There is no gossamer silk of tasseled corn, 
No flimsiest thread of the shy wood-fern, 
Not even the cobweb spread over the flowers, 
Fine as the hair of this baby of ours. 

There is no fairy shell by the sounding sea 

No wild-rose that nods on the windy lea, 

No blush of the sun through April's soft 

showers 
Pink as the palms of this baby of ours. 

May the dear Lord spare her to us, we pray, 
For many a long and sunshiny day. 
Ere he takes to bloom in Paradise bowers 
This wee bit darling — this baby of ours. 



-^:3C=<<- 




LEEP, baby, sleep ! for the night draweth 
nigh ; 
The daylight is fading from earth and from 
sky; 
Through rifts in tlie azure the stars will soon 

peep. 
While the breeze whispers softly, oh, sleep, baby, 
sleep. 

Sleep, baby, sleep ! mother sits by thy side, 
And rocks thee so gently, her joy and her pride. 
'Tis time you tN ere shutting your bonnie blue eye, 
There's nothing to fear, darling, sleep and by-bye. 

May angels watch o'er thee, through dark and 

through light ; 

God's tender care keep thee, we live in His s'ght; 

HERE is not a blossom of beautiful We'll trust Him, my darling, by night and by 

May, day; j 

J Silver of daisy or daffodil gay, The hand that has made us, will guard us alway. 

Nor the rosy bloom of apple-tree 

flowers Sleep, baby, sleep ! now the sand-man is here ; 

Fair as the 'face of this babv of ours. "^ «^"^^ ^" ^"^?^ ^«ft^>'' ^is purpose is clear ; 

Through the ivory gate into dream-land she 
You can never findonabright June day goes — 

A bit of fair sky so cheerv and gay, Now rest thee, my darling, sweet be thv repose. 

55 



^cs®^ 



THIS B&MY OF OUBS. 



jj__TH^TORNjaT. S! 



♦ « » « * "A leaf 
Fresh flung upon a river that will dance 
TTpon the wave that stealeth out its life, 
Then sink of its own heaviness." 

Philip Slingsby. 



CTitlERE'S something m a noble boy, 
^ A brave, free-hearted, careless one, 
With his uncheck'd, unbidden joy, 

His dread of books and love of fun, 
And in his clear and ready smile, 
Unshaded by a thought of guile, 

And unrepress'd by sadness — 
Which brings me to my childhood back, 
As if I trod its very track. 

And felt its very gladness. 
And yet it is not in his play. 

When every trace of thought is lost, 
And not when you would call him gay, 

That his bright presence thrills me most. 

His shout may ring upon the hill, 
His voice be echoed in the hall, 

His merry laagh like mnsic trill. 
And I unheeding hear it all — 

For, like the wrinkles on my brow, 

I scarcely notice such things now — 
But when, amid the earnest game, 

He stops, as if he music heard. 
And, heedless of his shouted name 

As of the carol of a bird, 
Stands gazing on the empty air 
As if some dream were passing there — 

'Tis then that on his lace I look, 
His beautiful but thoughtful face, 

And, like a long-forgotten book. 
Its sweet, familiar meaning trace — 

Remembering a thousand things 

Which pass'd me on those golden wings, 
Which time has fetter'd now — 

Things that came o'er me with a thrill, 

And left me silent, sad, and still, 
And threw upon my brow 

A holier and a gentler cast. 

That was too innocent to last. 



'Tis strange how thought upon a child 

Will, like a presence, sometimes press— 
And when his pulse is beating wild, 

And life itself is in excess — • 
When foot and hand, and ear and eye. 
Are all with ardor straining high — 

How in his heart w411 spring 
A feeling, whose mysterious thrall 
Is stronger, sweeter far than all ; 

And, on its silent wing, 
How with the clouds he'll float away. 
As wandering and as lost as they ! 

N. P. WiLLia 



A WEE SANG ON A WEE SUBJECT- 

iH, my bonnie Maiy, 
Winsome little fairy, 
Ever licht and airy — 
Singin' a' the day; 
Lauchin' aye sae sweetly, 
Actin^ sae discreetly, 
Winnin' hearts completely, 
Witchin' Mary May. 

Cheekies red as roses, 
Lippies sweet as posies, 
Ilka charm discloses, 

Quite a lurin' fay; 
Eenie ever glancin', 
Leggies ever dancin', 
Life an' love enchantin'— 

Bonnie Mary May. 



56 



Hoo I lo'e thee, Mary! 
Witchin' little fairy, 
A palace were a prairie, 

Wantin' sic a stay; 
Sic gladness floats aboot Ihee, 
Princes wadna flout thee, 
Life were can Id without thee, 

Little Mary May. 




HE ClIIE^BRBMa 



HEN the lessons and tasks 
are all ended, 
And the school for the day 
is dismissed, 
And the little ones gather 
around me, 
To bid me good-night and 
be kissed ; 
Oh, the little white arms that 
encircle 
My neck in a tender embrace ! 
Oh, the smiles that are halos of heaven, 
Shedding sunshine of love on my face I 

And when they are gone I sit dreaming 

Of my childhood too lovely to last ; 
Of love that my heart will remember, 

When it wakes to the pulse of the past, 
Ere the world and its wickedness made me 

A partner of sorrow and sin ; 
When the glory of God was about me, 

And the glory of gladness within. 

Oh ! my heart grows weak as a woman's, 

And the fountain of feeling will flow, 
When I think of the paths steep and stony, 

Where the feet of the dear ones must go ; 
Of the mountains of sins hanging o'er them, 

Of the tempest of fate blowing wild ! 
Oh I there is nothing on earth half so holy 

As the innocent heart of a child. 

They are idols of hearts and of households; 

They are angels of God in disguise ; 
His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses. 

His glory still gleams in their eyes; 
Oh ! these truants from home and from heaven. 

They have made me more manly and mild, 
And I know how Jesus could liken 

The kingdom of God to a child. 

I ask not a life for the dear ones. 

All radiant, as others have done. 
But that life may have enough shadow 

To tem])er the glare of the sun ; 
I would pray God to guard them from evil, 

But my prayer would come back to myself; 
Ah, a seraph may j^ray for a sinner, 

But a sinner must pray for himself. 

The twig is so eagerly bended, 

I have banished the rule and the rod ; 

I have taught them the goodness of knowledge, 
They have taught me the goodness of God ; 



My heart is a dungeon of darkness, 

Where I shut them from breaking a rule 

My frown is sufficient correction ; 
My love is the law of the school. 

I shall leave the old house in the autumn. 

To traverse its threshold no more ; 
Ah, how I shall sigh for the dear ones, 

That meet me each morn at the door, 
T shall miss the "good-nights" and the kisses, 

And the gush of their innocent glee, 
The group on the green, and the flowers 

That are brought every morning to me. 

I shall miss them at morn and evening, 

Their song in the school and the street; 
I shall miss the low hum of their voices, 

And the tramp of their delicate feet. 
When the lessons and the tasks are all ended. 

And death says : " The school is dismissed," 
May the little ones gather around me. 

To bid me good-night and be kissed. 

Chaeles M. Dickinsoh". 



.►^>:3.^|M=<<- 




THE LITTLE GIRL'S WONDER. 
HAT do the birds say, I wonder, I 
wonder. 
With their chitter and chatter? It 
isn't all play. 
Do they scold, do they fret at some boggle or 
blunder. 
As we fret, as we scold day after day ? 

Do their hearts ever ache, I wonder, I wonder, 
At anything else than the danger that comes 

When some enemy threatens them over or under 
The great, leafy boughs of their great leafp- 
homes? 

Do they vow to be friends, I wonder, I wonder, 
With promises fair and promises sweet, 

Then, quick as a wink, at a word fall asunder, 
As human friends do, in a moment of heat. 

But day after day I may wonder and wonder. 
And ask them no end of such questions as these— 

With chitter and chatter, now over, now under, 
The big, leafy boughs of the big, leafy trees 

They dart and they skim, with their bills full of 
plunder, 

But never a word of an answer they give, 
And never a word shall I get, though 1 wonder 

From morning till night, as long as I live. 



67 




nmswasff® Tmm mmwT. ^ 



E measured the riot- 
ous baby 

Against the cottage 
wall — 
A lily grew on the 
threshold, 

And the boy was 
just as tall ; 
A royal tiger-lily, 

With spots of pur- 
ple and gold, 

And a heart like a 
jeweled chalice, 

The fragrant dew 
to hold. 



Without, the bluebirds whistled 

High up in the old roof-trees, 
And to and fro at the window 

The red rose rocked her bees ; 
And the wee pink fists of the baby 

Were never a moment still, 
Snatching at shine and shadow 

That danced on the lattice-sill. 

His eyes were wide as bluebells — 

His mouth like a flower unblown — 
Two little bare feet, like funny white mice, 

Peeped out from his snowy gown ; 
And we thought, with a thrill of rapture 

That yet had a touch of pain. 
When June rolls around with her roses, 

We'll measure the boy again. 

Ah me ! in a darkened chamber. 

With the sunshine shut aw^ay, 
Through tears that fell like a bitter rain, 

We measured the boy to-day; 
And the little bare feet, that were dimpled 

And sweet as a budding rose, 
Lay side by side together, 

In the hush of a long repose 1 

Up from the dainty pillow, 

White as the risen dawn, 
The f lir little face lay smiling. 

With the light of heaven thereon ; 
And the dear little hands, like rose-leaves 

Dropped from a rose, lay still, 
>[ever to snatch at the sunshii^u 

That crept to the shrouded sill I 



■ 1 --1 i i ! ■ - i f - i- 



We measured the sleeping baby 

With ribbons white as snow, 
For the shining rosewood casket 

That waited him below ; 
And out of the darkened chamber 

We went with, a childless moan — 
To the height of the sinless a.ngels 

Our little one had grown. 



Emma A\.^c.^ Phowh. 



. ^-^ 

TH£ PLAY-HOUSE. 

¥TNDER a fir in the garden ground 
ly) A strange habitation to-day I found, 
~ Built of bushes, and bark, and boards, 
And holding hidden the queerest hoards. 

There were bits of crockery, sticks, and stones, 
Shreds of pink calico, strings of cones, 
Crumbs of candle, a picture-book, 
And, strangest of all, in a cosy nook 
AVas an idol made in the image of man, 
With charcoal eyes, and stufied with bran. 

" Were they h eathens v/ho dwelt there ?" Oh, no, 

indeed, 
"Were they animals?" Yes, of the kind that 

can read, 
And laugh and cry, or be wicked and pray. 
And when they are old their hair grows gray. 

Their names are Margery, Ned, and Sue ; 
Their curls are brown, and their eyes are blue ; 
And they builded there in the summer heat. 
As glad as the birds, and sang as sweet. 

The birds that built in the tree-tops high 
Are singing under a summer sky ; 
But the dear little builders who toiled below 
Are singing here in the firelight glow. 



THE BOY'S APPEAL 
Oh, why must my face be washed so clean, ; 

And rubbed and scrubbed for Sunday ? 
When you very well know, as you often have seen, 

'Twill be dirty again on Monday. 

You rub as hard as ever you can. 

And your hands are rough, to my sorrow ; 

No woman shall wash me when I'm a man; 
And I wish I was one to-morrow ! 



58 




SHALL THE BABY STAY. 
^- ^ 





N a little bro^^^l house 
With scarce room for a 

moase, • 
Came Avith morning's first 

ray, 
One remarkable day, 
(Though who told her the 
■ ,^ way 

i I am siu'e I can't say) 

^ A young lady so wee 

That you scarcely could 
see 
Her small speck of a nose ; 
And, to speak of her toes, — 
Though it seems hardly fair, 
Since they surely were there, 
Keep til em covered we must ; 
You must take them on trust. 

Now this little brown house, 
With scarce room for a mouse, 
Was quite full of small boys, 
AVith their books and their toys, 
Their wild bustle and noise. 

" My dear lads," quoth papa, 
" We've too many by far ; 
Tell us, what can we do 
With this damsel so new? 
We've no room for her here, 
So to me 'tis quite clear, 
Though it gives me great pain, 
I must hang her again 
On the tree whence she came, 
(Do not cry, there's no blame) 
With her white blanket round her. 
Just as Xurse Russell found her." 

Said stout little Xed, 
" I'll stay all day in bed, 
Squeezed up nice and small, 
Yeiy close to the wall." 
Then s))()ke Tommy, " I'll go 
To the cellar below ; 



I'll just travel about, 
But not try to get out ; 
Till you're all fast asleep; 
And so quiet I'll be 
You'll not dream it is me.'* 
Then flaxen-haired Will, 
"I'll be dreadfully still; 
On the back stairs I'll stay. 
Way off, out of the way." 

Quoth the father, " AVell don© 
My brave darlings, come on ! 
Here's a shoulder for Will, 
Pray sit still, sir, sit still ! 
Yaliant Thomas, for thee, 
A good seat on my knee. 
And Edward, thy brother, 
Can perch on the other ; 
Baby John, take my back ; 
Kow, who says we can't pack ? 

" So love gives us room. 
And our birdie shall stay. 

We'll keep her, my boys. 
Till God takes her away." 



THE CHILDREN. 

H ! what would the world be to us 
If the children were no more ? 
We should dread the desert behind U5 
Worse than the dark before. 

What the leaves are to the forest. 

With light and air for food. 
Ere their sweet and tender juices 

Have been hardened into wood — • 

That, to the world, are children; 

Through them it feels the glow 
Of a brighter and sunnier climate 

Than renrhes the trunk below. 

H. W. LONGFEHOW.- 



59 




--*-<- 



» » w 



GOOD-WIGHT ANB GOOU-MOMWIWG. ^<fr 



-.— « 



r 



FAIR little girl 

Sat under a tree, 
Sewing as long as 

Her eyes could see; 
She smoothed her work, 

And folded it right, 
And said, " Dear work, 

Good -night, good- 
night.'^ 



Such a number of rooks 

AYent over her head, 
Crying, " Caw, caw,'' 

On their way to bed. 
She said, as she watched 

Their curious flight, 
*^ Little black things. 

Good-night, good-night." 

The horses neighed. 

And the oxen lowed. 
And the sheep's "bleat, bleat," 

Came over the road ; 
All seeming to say. 

With a quiet delight, 
"Good little girl. 

Good-night, good-night." 

She did not say 

To the sun, "Good-night," 
Though she saw him there, 

Like a ball of light; 
For she knew he had 

God's time to keep 
All over the world, 

And never could sleep. 

The tall, pink fox-glove 

Bowed his head; 
The violets curtsied 

And went to bed; 



And good little Lucy 

Tied up her hair. 
And said, on her kneeSj 

Her favorite prayer. 

And when on her pillow, 

She softly lay. 
She heard nothing more 

Till again it was day. 
And all things said 

To the beautiful sun, 
" Good-morning, good-morning, 



Our work has begun.^ 



LoED Houghton. 



A HINT. 

^\ UR Daisy lay down 
VJ In her little night gown. 
And kissed me again and again, 

On forehead and cheek. 

On lips that would speak, * 
But found themselves shut, to their gain. 

Then, foolish, absurd. 

To utter a word, 
I asked her the question so old 

That wife and that lover 

Ask over and over. 
As if they were surer when told ! 

There, close at her side, 

" Do you dove me ?" I cried ; • 
She lifted her golden-crowned head ; 

A puzzled surprise 

Shone in her gray eyes — 
" Why, that's why I kiss you !" she said. 
Ais^NA C. Beackett. 



60 



^^' BLESSINGS ON CHILDREN- 





^^3= 

s LESSINGS on the blessed children, sweetest gifts of Heaven to earth, 
^r^ Filling uU the heart with gladness, filling all the house with mirth ; 
^^ Bringing with them native sweetness, pictures of the primal bloom 

Which the bliss forever gladdens, of the regions whence they come ; 

Bringing with them joyous impulse of a state withoutcn care. 

And a buoyant faith in being, which makes all in nature fair ; 
Not a doubt to dim the distance, rot a grief to vex the nigh, 

And a hope that in- existence find? each hour a luxury ; 
Going singing, bounding, brightening — never fearing as they go, 
That the innocent shall tremble, and the loving find a foe ; 
In the daylight, in the starlight, still with thought that freely flies, 
Prompt and joyous, Avith no question of the beauty in the skies ; 
Genial fancies winning raptures, as the bee still sucks her store, 
All the present still a garden glean'd a thousand times before ; 
All the future but a region where the happy serving thought. 
Still depicts a thousand blessings, by the winged hunter caught ; 
Life a chase where blushing pleasures only seem to strive in flight, 
Lingering to be caught, and yielding gladly to the proud delight; 
As the maiden, through the alleys, looking backward as she flies, 
Woos the fond pursuer ouAvard, Avith the love-light in her eyes. 

Oh ! the happy life in children, still restoring joy to ours. 
Making for the forest music, planting for the wayside flowers ; 
Back recalling all the sweetness, in a pleasure pure as rare, 
Back the past of hope and rapture bringing to the heart of care. 
HoAv, as swell the happy voices, bursting through the shady grove. 
Memories take the place of sorrows, time restores the sway to love ! 
We are in the shouting comrades, shaking oif the load of years. 
Thought forgetting, strifes and trials, doubts, and agonies, and tears ; 
We are in the bounding urchin, as o'er hill and plain he darts, 
Share the struggle and the triumph, gladdening in his heart of hearts* 
What an image of the vigor and the glorious grace Ave kncAV, 
When to eager youth from boyhood at a single bound Ave grcAV ! 
Even such our slender beauty, such upon our cheek the gloAv, 
In our eyes the life of gladness — of our blood the OA^erflow, 
Bless the mother of the urchin ! in his form Ave sec her truth : 
He is noAV the very picture of the memories in our youth ; 
Never can avc doubt the forehead, nor the sunny flowing hair, 
Nor the smiling in the dimple speaking cliin and cheek so fair; 
Bless the mother of the young one ; he hath blended in his grace, 
All the hope, and joy, and beauty, kindling once in either face ! 

Oh ! the happy faith of children, that is glad in all it sees, 
And with ncA^er need of thinking, pierces still its mysteries I 

61 



BLESSINGS ON CHILDREN. 



In simplicity profoundest, in their soul abundance bless'd, 

Wise in value of the sportive, and in restlessness at rest ; 

Lacking every creed, yet having faith so large in all they see, 

That to know is still to gladden, and 'tis rapture but to be. 

What trim fancies bring them flowers ; what rare spirits walk their wood, 

What a wondrous world the moonlight harbors of the gay and good ! 

Unto them the very tempest walks in glories grateful still. 

And the lightning gleams, a seraph, to persuade them to the hill : 

'Tis a sweet and^ loving spirit, that throughout the midnight rains. 

Broods beside the shutter'd windows, and with gentle love complams; 

And how woomg, how exalting, with the richness of her dyes. 

Spans the painter of the rainbow, her bright arch along the skies, 

With a dream like Jacob's ladder, showing to the fancy's sight, 

How 'twere easy for the sad one to escape to worlds of light ! 

Ah ! the wisdom of such fancies, and the truth in every dream, 

That to faith confiding offers, cheering every gloom, a gleam ! 

Happy hearts, still cherish fondly each delusion of your youth, 

Joy is born of well believing, and the fiction wraps the truth. ^ ^ ^^^^^ 

9* c3s€J>— C§' 



GOING UP. 

•4 Tp and up the baby goes, 
I Up to papa's shoulder. 

Now she clings to papa's nose — 
Now, becoming bolder, 
How she flings her arms and crows ! 
Do you think the darling knows 
How strong the arms that hold her? 

Up and up the baby goes, 

Taller, wiser, older ; 
As the calyx holds the rose, 

Childish years enfold her ; 
By and by they shall enclose 
From the woman and the rose ; 

Then, Father, hold her ! 

On the heights of womanhood, 

Hold her, Heavenly Father ; 
Lest, forgetting what is good, 

She be carried rather 
Down with folly's multitude 
Into error's mazy wood 

Where the shadows gather. 

Up and up the baby goes ; 

Heavenly Father, give her 
Heart to feel for others' woes, 

Hands of helping ever ; 
Let her bloom, when life shall close, 
Like a white immortal rose 

By the crystal river. 



ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANi. 

J HOST of angels flying, 
m% Through cloudless skies impelled, 
'^ Upon the earth beheld 
y^ A pearl of beauty lying, 
Worthy to glitter bright 
In heaven's vast hall of light, 

They saw with glances tender, 

An infant newly born. 

O'er whom life's earliest morn 
Just cast its opening splendor; 

Virtue it could not know. 

Nor vice, nor joy, nor woe. 

The blest angelic legion 

Greeted its birth above, 

And came, with looks of love, 
From heaven's enchanting region ; 

Bending their winged way 

To where the infant lay. 

They spread their pinions o'er it,— 

That little pearl which shone 

With lustre all its own,— 
And then on high they bore it. 

Where glory has its birth ; — 

But left the shell on earth. 

Dirk Smits Datch.) 



Translation of H. S. Van Dyk. 



62 





r|HE reason I call it " Baby's Day " 
Is funny enough to tell; 
"fWf The first thing she did was give "syrup of 
/u^ squills" 

To dolly to make her well ; 
And then when I told her how wrong it was, 

She said, with a quivering sigh, 
" I'm sorry I made her so sticky, mamma, 
But I couldn't let dolly die." 

Then comforted wholly she went away, 

And was just as still as a mouse, 
And I thought to be sure I should find her at 
once 

In the nursery playing ''house;" 
But, lo ! on the way as I started to look, 

A queer little piece I found, 
Just like a centre of snowy lawn 

That the scissors had scalloped round, 

I cried, " O, baby ! what have you done ? 

You have been to somebody's drawer, 
And taken from out of the handkerchief pile 

The most beautiful one that you saw !" 
And then the dear little head went down 

Pathetic as it could be, 
While she sobbed, "There was nothing for me to 
cut, 

And I thought I'd take two or three !" 

It was only a little later on. 

That the water began to splash. 
And I jumped and found she was rubbing away 

On her sister's holiday sash ; 
But, catching a look of utter dismay, 

As she lifted her innocent eyes, 
She whispered : " Don't worry, I'll wash it all 
clean, 

And hang it up til! it dries." 

But the funny mishaps of that wonderful day 

I could not begin to relate ; 
The boxes of buttons and pins she spilled. 

Like a cherub pursued by fate ! 
And still, all the while, the dear little dove 

Was fluttering 'round her nest, 
And the only thing I really could do 

Was to smooth out her wings on my breast. 

But the day drifted on till it came to an end. 

And the great moon rose in sight. 
And the dear soft lids o'er the dear soft eyes 

Dropped tenderly their good-night- 



And I thought, as I looked on her lying asleep, 

I was glad (for once in a way), 
That my beautiful child was human enough 

For a mischievous " Baby Day." 

Mks. L. C. Whitq]!". 



MAMMA'S STORY. 

' * /"OELL us a story, mamma dear," 
The children cried one day. 
" The rain falls fast. It is going to last. 
And we are all tired of play." 

Ah ! pleading eyes and winning tones. 

How could they be denied? 
So mamma began in merry strain. 

And she laid her work aside : 

" There was an old woman that lived in a shoe. 
And of all the children that ever you knew, 
Hers was the wildest, funniest crew ; 
Do you wonder she didn't know what to do? 

"There were Ella, and Nell, and Mary Belle, 
Laurie, Laura, and Maud Estelle, 
Sarah, Sammy, and Josephine, 
Norah, Norval, and Madeline, 
Lilian, Archibald, and Harry, 
Christopher, Charlie, Pete, and Carrie, 
Jemmy, Johnny, and Theodore, 
And over a half a dozen more, 

" And then such a terrible time, 'twas said, 
She had in getting them all to bed. 
And supper, alas ! was such a dread, 
Especially when they cried for bread. 
One night she threatened to whip them all. 
And reached for the switch upon the wall. 

My ! how the madcap urchins flew 
In and out of the poor old shoe ; 
Over each other they madly dash, 
The old lady after them like a flash. 
Through a hole in the worn-out sole, 
Back and forth at each button-hole ; 
Out at the top and in at the toe. 
Around and under, away they go. 

" Finally, wearied out Avith fun, 
They drop in their places one by one, 
And not till her house was still as death, 
Does the old woman pause to recover breath." 

Julia M. Dana. 

63 



''THANKS TO YOW 



^« 



immt f © ir©ii< 



VERY day for a month of Sundays, 
Saturdays, Tuesdays, Fridays, Mondays, 
Jack had pondered the various means, 
And methods pertaining to grinding 
machines, 
Until he was sure he could build a wheel 
That, given the sort of dam that's proper, 
Would only need some corn in the hopper 
To turn out very respectable meal. 

Jerry, and Jane, and Joe, and the others, 
Jack's incredulous sisters and brothers, 
Gave him credit for good intentions. 
But took no stock in the boy's inventions. 
In fact, they laughed them quite to scorn ; 

Instead of wasting his time, they said. 

He would be more likely to earn his bread 
Planting potatoes or hoeing corn. 

Bessie alone, when all the rest 
Crushed his spirit with jibe and jest. 
Whispered softly, " Whatever they say, 
I know you will build the wheel some day I" 
Chirping crickets and singing birds 

Were not so sweet as her heartsome words; 

Straight he answered, " If ever I do, 
I know it will only be thanks to you V 

Many a time sore heart and brain 

Leap at a word, grown strong again, 

Thanks to her, as the story goes, 

Hope and courage in Jack arose ; 

Till one bright day in the meadow-brook 
There was heard a sound as of water plashing, 
And Bessie watched with her happy look 

The little wheel in the sunlight flashing. 

By and by, as the years were fraught 

With fruit of his earnest toil and thought. 

Brothers and sisters changed their -tune — 

" Our Jack," they cried, " will be famous soon!" 

Which was nothing more than Bessie knew, 

She said, and had known it all the while ! 

But Jack replied with a kiss and a smile, 
" If ever I am, it is thanks to you !" 

Maey E. Beaply. 



THE GOOD SHIP " NEVER-FAIL" 

¥HY don't you launch your boat, my 
boy?" 
I asked the other day, 
As strolling idly on the beach 
• I saw my lads at play ; 
One blue-eyed rogue shook back his curls, 

And held his ship to me, 
•'I'm giving her a name," he cried, 

" Before she goes to sea ; 
We rigged her out so smart and taut, 

With flag and snow-white sail. 
And now I'll trust her to the waves, 
And call her ' Never-Fail.' " 

The little ship sailed proudly out, 

Through mimic rock and shoal, 
The child stood watching on the beach 

His vessel reach its goal ; 
The wind had risen soft at first, 

But wilder soon it blew, 
It strained and bent the slender mast, 

That still rose straight and true ; 
" Yet," cried the boy, " my ship is safe, 

In spite of wind and gale, 
Her sails are strong, her sides are firm. 

Her name is 'Never- Fail.' " 

And presently the wind was lulled. 

The little bark came home, 
No wreck, although her sails were wet. 

Her deck all washed with foam ; 
And loudly laughed my true boy then, 

As at his feet she lay, 
And wisely spoke my true boy then. 

Although 'twas said in play — 
" Papa, I thought if mast and sail 

And tackle all were true. 
With such a name as 'Never-Fail,' 

She'd sail the wide sea through." 



:o:- 



O'er wayward Children wouldst thou hold firm 
rule. 
And sun thee in the light of happy faces? 
Love, Hope and Patience, these must be thy 
graces. 
And in thine own heart let them first keep school 

S. T. Coleridge 

64 



THEY PLANTED HER. 

Amy died — 
Dear little Amy I when you talk of her, 
Say she is gone to heaven. 

Second Child, They planted her — 
Will she come up next year? 

First Child. No, not so soon ; 
But some day God will call her to come up, 
And then she will. Papa knows everything ; 
He said she would before they planted her. 

Jean I, Ingelow, 




' YE BALLAD OF CHRISTMAS, 





ING a song of Christmas ! 
Pockets full of gold ; 
Plum and cakes for Polly's 
stocking, 
More than it could hold. 
Pudding in the great pot, 

Turkey on the spit, 
Merry faces aroimd the fire — 
Sorrow? not a bit! 

Sing a song of Christmas ! 

Carols in the street. 
Bundles going home with people, 

Everywhere we meet. 
Holly, fir, and spruce boughs 

Green upon the wall, 
Spotless snow along the road, 

More going to fall. 

Sing a song of Christmas! 

Empty pockets here; 
Windows broken, garments thin, 

Stove black and drear. 
Noses blue and frosty, 

Fingers pinched and red. 
Little hungry children going 

Supperless to bed. 

Sing a song of Christmas — 

Tears are falling fast; 
Empty is the baby's chair. 

Since 'twas Christmas last. 
Wrathfully the north wind 

Wails across the snow. 
Is there not a little grave 

Frozen down below? 

Sing a song of Christmas! 

Thanks to God on high 
For the tender hearts abounding 

With His charity I 

5 66 



Gifts for all the needy. 
For the sad hearts, love, 

And a little angel smiling 
In sweet heaven above! 



-♦^ 



FANNY'S MUD PIES. 



XDEE, the apple-tree, spreading and 

thick, 
Happy with only a pan and a stick, 
On the soft grass in the meadow that lies, 
Our little Fanny is making mud pies. 

On her bright apron, and bright drooping head, 
Showers of pink and white blossoms are shed ; 
Tied to a branch, that seems just meant for that^ 
Dances and flutters her little straw hat. 

Gravely she stirs, with a serious look, 
Making believe she's a true pastry cook ; 
Sundry brown splashes on forehead and eyea 
Show that our Fanny is making mud pies. 

But all the soil of her innocent play 
Clean soap and water will soon wash away ; 
Many a pleasure in daintier guise 
Leaves darker traces than Fanny's mud pies. 

Dash, fiill of joy in the bright summer day, 
Zealously chases the robins away, 
Barks at the squirrels, or snaps at the flies, 
All the while Fanny is making mud pies. 

Sunshine and soft summer breezes astir, 
While she is busy, are busy with her,— 
Cheeks rosy glowing, and bright sparkling eyea, 
Bring they to Fanny while making mud pies. 

Dollies and playthings are all laid away. 
Not to come out till the next rainy day ; 
Under the blue of those sweet summer skies, 
Nothing so pleasant as making mud pies. 

Elizabeth Sill. 



-O-f- 



In this dim world of clouding cares 
We rarely know till wildcred eyes 
See white wings lessening up the skies 

The angels with us unawares! 

Gerald ^Iassey. 



-c^ 



,-^:2, 



iMlTfiMDHERDOLLS,! 




AMILY laden, 

"Wee, wise maiden — 
Knits her brow in dainty knots, 

How to dolly 

Cure of folly 
Occupies her busy thoughts. 



"Dollies wet her 

Feet to get her 
Posies, in the morning dew; 

Sure to be sick — 

Cold or colic- 
Like as not the measles, too. 

"There is Freddy, 

Always ready 
Into awful 'fairs to fall : 

Bad as Rosy— 

Doodness knows, I 
Don't know how to manage 'tall ! 

" Jack or Norah's 

Telled a story ! 
One or t'uver ate ma's cake! 

While there's silly. 

Greedy Willy, 
Got a drefful stomach ache! 

^•Naughty Bessie 

Tored her dress; she 
Wants anuver one, I s'pose ; 

I tell you what 

It tates a lot 
Of work to teep my dolls in tose!' 

Look! she lays her 

Down by Csesar— 
What can be the matter now? 

Blue eyes closing, 

Blinking, dozing — 
Wee white hands and lily brow- 




Cheeks so waxen, 

Tresses flaxen, . 
Footsteps, that a fairy seems— 

All now wander 

Over yonder. 
In the happy land of dreams! 

LULU'S COMPLAINT. 

'S a poor 'ittle sorrowful baby. 

For B'idget is way down stairs ; 
My titten has st'ached my finder. 
And dolly won't say her p'ayers. 

I haint seen my bootiful mamma 

Since-ever so Ion' ado ; 
An' I ain't her tunnin'est baby 

No louder, for B'idget says so. 

My ma's got another new baby ; 

Dod dived it-he did— yesterday. 
An' it kies, it kies, oh, so defful 1 

I wis' he would tate it away. 

I don't want no " sweet 'ittle sister !" 
I want my dood mamma, I do ; 

I want her to tiss me, an' tiss me. 
An' tall me her p'ecious Lulu ! 

I dess my bid papa will b'in' me 
A 'ittle dood titten some day. 

Here's nurse wid my mamma's new baby, 
I wis' s'e would tate it away. 

Oh, oh, what tunnin' red finders! 

It sees me yite o' its eyes !^ 
I dess we will teep it, and dive it 

Some tanny whenever it kies. 

I dess I will dive it my Dollv 
To plav wid mos' every day ; 

And I dess, I dess-Say, B'idget, 
As' Dod not to tate it away. 

Hester A. Benedict. 

66 




^ miWS iREAM OF A ^TARx 

HERE was once But while she was still very young, oh, 
a child, and he very young, the sister drooped, and came 
strolled about a to be so weak that she could no longer 
good deal, and stand at the window at night, and then the 
thought of a uum- child looked sadly out by himself, and when 
ber of things. He he saw the star, turned round and said to 
had a sister who the patient pale face on the bod, "I see the 
was a child too, star!" and then a smile would come upon 
and his constant the face, and a little weak voice used to say, 
companion. They " God bless my brother and the star !" 
wondered at the And so the time came, all too soon, when 
l>eauty of flowers; they wondered at the the child looked out all alone, and when 
height and blueness of the sky ; they won- there was no face on the bed, and when 
dered at the depth of the water; they won- there was a grave among the graves, not 
dored at the goodness and power of God, there before, and when the star made 'long 
who made them lovely. rays down towards him as he saw it through 

^ They used to say to one another some- his tears. 

times: Supposing all children on earth Now these rays were so bright, and they 
were to die, would the flowers, and the seemed to make such a shining way from 
water, and the sky be sorry? They be- earth to heaven, that when the child ^rent 
leved they would be sorry. For, said they, to his solitary bed, he dreamed about a star; 
the buds are the children of the flowers, and dreamed that, lying where he was, he 
and the httle playful streams that gambol saw a train of people taken up that spark- 
down the hillsides are the children of the ling road by angels; and the star, opening, 
water and the smallest little specks placing showing him a great world of light, where 
at hide and seek in the sky all night must many more such angels waited to receive 
surely be the children of the stars; and them. 

they would all be grieved to see their play- All these angels, who were waiting 
mates, the children of men, no more. turned their beaming eyes upon the ,,cople 

I here was one clear shining star that who were carried up into the .star; and soon 
used o come out in the sky before the rest, came out from the long rows in which thev 
near the church spire, above the graves. It stood, and fell upon the people's necks, and 
was larger and more beautiful, tlicy thought, kissed them tenderly, and went away with 
than all the others, and every night they them down the avenues of light, and were 
watched for It, standing hand-in-hand at a .so happy in their company, that lying in his 
window. Whoever saw it first, cried out, bed, he wept for joy. 

crLri?"l T'! t""^ """"■ *'"'*' *'''y ^"* ^''^'•^ ^^-"'^ '"""y •■'"g«'« ^^'I'O ''id "Ot 
ciiecl out bo h together, knowing so well go with then., and among them one he 

V en It would rise, and where. So they knew. The patient face tliat once had lain 

.revv to oe such friends with it that, before upon the bc.l was glorified and radiant, but 

y ng down ,n their bed, they always looked his heart found out his sister among all the 

out once again to bid it good night; and host. 

when they were turning round to sleep. His sister's angel linsrercl near the en- 

ti.ey used to say, " God bless the star !" trance of the sta^, and said to the 1 Jer 

67 



A CHILD'S BREAM OF A STAB. 

amon. those who had brought the people all the star, because the mother was re- 
amon^ tnose 6 ^^.^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ children. And he 

'" " Is my brother come?" stretched out his arms and cried, "Oh 

A iTlld "No'" mother, sister and brother, I am here, 

^:\tst;ni„;hopefulV away, when Takeme!" And they answered him, "Not 
the child stretched out Lis arms, and cried, yet !"-and the star was stdl shuung. 
1 Ob sister I am here ! Take me !" And He grew to be a man, whose hau- was 
th?n 'she turned her beaming eyes upon turning g-y a,^ he was -t 'ug m Ins 
,n-and it was night; and the star was chair by the fires.de, heavy with gi ef, and 
iW into the room, making long rays with his face bedewed with tears, when the 
down toward him as he saw it through his star opened once again 

Said his sister's angel to the leader, is 
tears. , , , , w 

From that hour forth, the child looked my brother come? 

oufrprnt star as the home he was to go And he said, "Nay, but his maiden 
to when his time should come; and he daughter! , , ,, ^, , •, . ,,^ 

holht that he did not belong to the earth And the man who had been the child saw 
done but o the star too, because of his sis- his daughter, newly lost to h-, a celes^ia 
! Jl .anP before creature among those three, and he said: 

'"irtas^tatbonitobeabrothert^ "My danghter's head is on my sisters 
the chTd, and while he was so little that he bosom, and her arm is aromid -7 -^ler s 
never ye had spoken a word, he stretched neck, and at her feet is the baby of old 
^^Ihis tty form on his bed, and died. time, and I can bear the parting from her. 

Again the child dreamed of the opened God be praised."-And the star was shin- 
Star and of the company of angels, and the mg. i;, „^ 

If people, an] the rows of angels, Thus the child came to be an dd man 
wUh their baming eyes all turned upon and his once smooth face was wrinkled and 
with their beami ) ^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^y^^ ^^^ his 

^'Slt:i:t5 angel to the leader = back 1 bent. And one night as he lay 

"Is m^Sier conie?" ' upon ^ bed his -il ;-tan ing roun^ 

And he said, "Not that one, but an- he cried,_as he cried so long ago. 

, ,„ the star !' . 

As'the child beheld his brother's angel They whispered *« -f *; fj^ ^ 

in her arms he cried, " Oh, my sister, I am dying." And he said, I am. M) age is 

W T ke m !'' 'And 'she turned and falling from me like a garment, aud I 

smi d upon him,-and the star was shining, move towards the star a« a chdd A ^ ^ 

He grew to be a young man, and was my Father, now I thank Thee that it has 
buSftTis books, when "an old servant so often opened ^1. receive those dear ones 

-r;;tr tt more. I bring her ^1:1^2 w^s shining; and it shine, 

blessing on her darling son." ^ upon his grave. ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ 

Again at night he saw the star, and all ^ ^ 

that former company. Said his sister's^n- ^^^^^^^ . ^^^^ ^^^^ 

gel to the leader^ Is my bro her come ? A toin^,, ^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^ ^,^^,^^_ 

And he saur ihy motnei .^ ^ ^ ^ H. AV. Longfellow. 



A mighty cry of joy went forth thro'.i- 



•h 
68 




wo little children, 

five yeai'rf old, 
Marie the gentle, 

Charlie the bold ; 
Sweet and bright 

and quaintly wise 
Angels both in their 

mother's eyes. 

i 

IBut you, if you follow my verse, shall see 
That they were as human as human can be, 
And had not yet learned the maturer art 
Of hiding the " self" of the finite heart. 

One day, they found, in their romp and play, 
Two little rabbits soft and gray — 
Soft and gray, and just of a size. 
As like each other as your two eyes. 

All day long the children made love 
To the dear little pets — their treasure trove; 
They kissed and hugged them until the night 
Brought to the conies a glad respite. 

Too much fondling doesn't agree 
With the rabbit nature, as we shall see, 
For ere the light of another day 
Had chased the shadow^s of night away, 

One little pet had gone to the shades. 
Or, let us hope, to perennial glades. 
Brighter and softer than any below — 
A heaven where good little rabbits grow. 

The living and dead lay side by side, 

And still alike as before one died ; 

And it chanced that the children came singly to 

view 
The pets they had 

throuo-h. 



dreamed of all the night 



First came Charlie, and, with sad surprise, 
Beheld the dead with streaming eyes 
Howe'er, consoling, he said, 
^Poor little Marie— A^r rabbit's dead /" 




Later came Marie, and stood aghast; 
She kissed and caressed it, but at last 
Found voice to say, while her young heart 

bled, 
" I'm so sorry for Charlie — Jus rabbit's dead T 

TELLING A STORY. 

ITTLE Blue-eyes is sleepy, 

Come here and be rocked to sleep. 
'^ What shall I tell you, darling? 
The story of Little Bo Peep ? 
Or of the cows in the garden, 

Or the children who ran away ? 
If I'm to be story-teller 

What shall I tell you, pray ? 

" Tell me " — the Blue-eyes opened 

Like pansies when the}'' blow, 
" Of the baby in the manger, 

The little child-Christ, you know. 
I like to hear that 'tory 

The best of all you tell." 
And my four-year-old nestled closer 

As the twilight shadows fell. 

And I told my darling over 

The old, old tale again : 
Of the baby born in the manger, 

And the Christ who died for men, 
Of the great warm heart of Jesps, 

And the children w^hom He blest, 
Like the blue-eyed boy who listened 

As he lay upon my breast. 

And I prayed, as my darling slumbered, 

That my child, with eyes so sweet. 
Might learn from his Saviour's lesson 

And sit at the Master's feet. 
Pray God he may never forget it. 

But always love to hear 
The tender and touching story 

That now he holds so dear. 

Eben E. Rexford. 



69 



!BS 






mmA:% 



fjj^^ 



wr&mm^A 





' HEEE little curly heads golden 
and fair, 
Three pairs of hands that are 

lifted in prayer, 
Three little figures in garments 

of white, 
Three little mouths that are 

kissed for good-night, 
Three little gowns that are folded 
^ away, 

Three littk children who rest from their play, 
Three little hearts that are full of delight, 
For this is the close of a sweet Sunday nigh-.. 

And mamma had clustered them all round her 

knee 
And made them as happy as children could be ; 
Bhe told to them stories of Jesus of old 
Who called little children like lambs to His fold ; 
Who gathered them up in His arms to caress, 
And blessed them as only a Saviour could bless, 
While the innocent faces grew tender and bright, 
With the sweet, earnest talk of the calm Sunday 

night. 

And the blue eyes of Bennie had widen'd with 

fear, . 

While Maidie had dropped an occasional tear, 
When they heard of the lions and Daniel so bold, 
And Joseph who once by his brethren was sold, 
And the children who walked 'mid the furnace of 

flame. 
Till the Angel of God in his purity came, 
Walking unharmed in their garments of white,— 
Oh, these were sweet stories to hear Sunday night I 

And Maidie had said— the dear little child- 
Looking up in the face of her mother so mild, 
"I ^^i3h_oli, so much!— I wish, mamma, dear, 
When the angels were walking they'd come to us 

here ; 
I'd like once to see them, so shining and fair, 
Come floating and floating right down through 

the air. 
Let's ask them to come," said the wee little sprite, 
'' Let's ask them to come to us this Sunday night." 

Then mamma told in her grave, gentle way, 
How the angels were guarding the children each 
day; 



How they stood softly round by the little one's 

bed; 
How the blessing descended alike on each head ; 
But when they were naughty or wilfully bad. 
Then the Father was grieved and His angels were 

sad. 
'^ Ah, I mean to be good," lisped the baby, " and 

then 
I may see them some time when they're coming 

to Ben !" 

Oh, the innocent children ! How little they know 
Of the dear eyes in heaven bent on them below ; 
Of the guardian spirits, who close by their side 
Are watching and waiting to strengthen and 

guide ; 
And now, as they lie wrapped in dreams and in 

sleep, 
How ceaseless the vigils the angels will keep ! 
And mamma prays, "Father, oh, guide them, 

aright. 
And send Thy good angels to guard them to- 

night!" 

Mary R. Higham. 



CHILD'S MORNING HYMN. 

>AFELY guarded by Thy presence, 
By Thy tender love and power, 
Holy Father I Thou hast brought me 
To this peaceful happy hour. 

While the night shades gather round me, 
While " I laid me down and slept," 

'Twas Thy mercy that sustained me, 
And my life in being kept. 

Thoughts of all this care so tender, 
Wake a morning hymn of praise, 

While a song of full thanksgiving, 
Here and now to Thee I raise. 

Strengthened thus in mind and body, 

Help me to begin anew, 
In the race of love and duty. 

And the right each hour pursue. 

So, when all life's changing seasons, 
Fraught with " weal or woe," are past, 

Kept and saved by love eternal, 

Praise shall crown the work at last. ^ ^ 



70 




HE dwelt among the untrodden ways 
Beside the springs of Dove, 
A maid whom there were none to praise, 
And very few to love : 

A violet by a mossy stone 

Half hidden from the eye ! 
Fair as a star, when only one 

Is shinino; iu the skv. 



She lived unknown, and few could know- 
When Lucy ceased to be : 

But she is in her grave, and, oh ! 
The difference to me ! 

Three years she grew in sun and shower; 
Then Nature said : " A lovelier flower 

On earth was never sown ; 
This child I to myself will take ; 
She shall be mine, and I will make 

A lady of my own. 

"Myself will to my darling be 
Both lavv' and impulse ; and with me 

The girl, in rock and plain, 
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, 
Shall feel an overseeing power. 

To kindle or restrain. 

**She shall be sportive as the fawn 
That wild with glee across the lawn 

Or up the mountain springs; 
And hers shall be the breathing balm. 
And hers the silence and the calm 

Of mute insatiate things. 

" The floating clouds their state shall lend 
To her ; for her the willow bend : 

Nor shall she fail to see, 
Even in the motions of the storm, 
Grace that shall mould the maiden's form 

By silent sympathy. 

" The stars of midnight shall be dear 
To her ; and she shall lean her ear 

In many a secret place 
Where rivulets dance their wayward round 
And beauty born of murmuring sound 

Shall pass into her face. 

"And vital feelings of delight 
Shall rear her form to stately height. 
Her virgin bosom swell ; 



Such thoughts to Lucy I will give 
While she and I together live 

Here in this happy dell." 
Thus Nature spake. — The work was done^ 
How soon my Lucy's race was run ! 

She died, and left to me 
This heaih, this calm, and quiet scene; 
The memory oi what has been, 

And never more will be. 

William Wordswobte. 
y-^ 

^^1;,^^ GOING TO BED. 

UR Fannie Angelina 

Didn't want to go to bed, — 
Her reasons would you know ? then 

Let me tell you what she said. 
At eight o'clock precisely, 

At the close of yesterday. 
Her mamma in the trundle-bed 
Had tacked her snug away. 
" It isn't time to go to bed, 

The clock goes round too quick , 
It hurts my back to lie in bed 

And almost makes me sick: 
I want to show my Uncle George 

My pretty birthday ring ; 
And sing him ' Jesus loves me,' 

For he likes to hear me sing ; 
My dollie, Haddynewya, 

Her yellow dress is thin. 
And she's sitting on the horse-block, 

I forgot to bring her in ; 
I want to go and get her. 

She'll catch a cold and die; 
I want to get my nankachick, 

I guess I've got to cry. 
I said I'd wait till papa comes, 

I wonder what he'll think ; 
There's something hurts me in my throat, 

I want to get a drink. 
I guess I'd rather get it in 

My little silver cup — 
What makes me have to go to bed 

When you are staying up ?" 
So Fannie Angelina 

Was determined not to do it. 
Yet she drifted off* to Nod land. 

Poor child, before she knew it. 
The queen who reigns in Nod land 

Shut her willful eyes so tight, 
They quite forgot to open 

Till the sun was shining bright. 



71 





PLAYMATES. B^^ 



ONCE had a sister, oh fair 

'mid the fair ! 
With a face that looked out 

from its soft golden hair, 
Like a lily some tall stately 

angel may hold, 
Half revealed, half concealed 

in a mist of pure gold. 
I once had a brother, more 

dear th^n the day. 
With a temper as sweet as 
the blossoms in May ; 
With dark hair like a cloud, and a face like a rose. 
The red child of the wild ! when the summer- 
wind blows. 
We lived in a cottage that stood in a dell ; 
Were we born there or brought there I never 

could tell ; 
Were we nursed by the angels, or clothed by the 

fays. 
Or, who led when we fled down the deep sylvan 
ways, 

'Mid treasures of gold and silver ! 

When we rose in the morning we ever said 

"Hark!" 
We shall hear, if we list, the first word of the lark ; 
And we stood with our faces, calm, silent and 

bright. 
While the breeze in the trees held his breath with 

delight. 
Oh the stream ran with music, the leaves dript 

with dew. 
And we looked up and saw the great God in the 

blue ; 
And we praised him and blessed him, but said 

not a word, 
For we soared, we adored, with that magical bird. 
Then with hand linked in hand, how we laughed, 

how we sung ! 
How we danced in a ring, whe-n the morning was 

young ! 
:How we wandered where kingcups were crusted 
: with gold, 
'Or more white than the light glittered daisies 

untold, 

Those treasures of gold and of silver! 

Oh, well I remember the flowers that we found. 
With the red and white blossoms that damasked 
the ground ; 



And the long lane of light, that, half yellow, half 

green, 
Seemed to fade down the glade where the young 

fairy queen 
Would sit with her fairies around her and sing, 
While we listened all ear, to that song of the 

Spring, 
Oh, well I remember the lights in the west. 
And the spire, where the fire of the sun seemed 

to rest, 
When the earth, crimson-shadowed, laughed out 

in the air, — 
Ah ! I'll never believe that the fairies were there; 
Such a feeling of loving and longing was ours, 
And we saw, with glad awe, little hands in the 

flowers, 

Drop treasures of gold and of silver. 

Oh, weep ye and wail ! for that sister, alas ! 
And that fair gentle brother lie low in the grass ; 
Perchance the red robins may strew them with 

leaves. 
That each morn, for white corn, would come down 

from the eaves ; 
Perchance of their dust the young violets are 

made, 
That bloom by the church that is hid in the glade ; 
But one day I shall learn, if I pass where they 

grow. 
Far more sweet they will greet their old play- 
mates, I know. 
Ah ! the cottage is gone, and no longer I see 
The old glade, the old paths, and no lark sings 

for me : 
But I still must believe that the fairies are there, 
That the light grows more bright, touched by 

fingers so fair, 

'Mid treasures of gold and of silver ! 



A DESCRIPTION OF TWO BABIES. 

1. One of those little carved representa- 
tions that one sometimes sees blowing a 
trumpet on a tombstone ! 

2. A weazen little baby, with a heavy 
head that it couldn't hold up, and two weak, 
staring eyes, with which it seemed to be 
always wondering why it had ever been born» 

Cha-kles Dickens. 



THE NUESE'S SOXG. 






HEX nursery lamps are veil- 
ed, and nurse is singing 
In accents low, 
Timing her music to the 
cradle's swinging. 
Now fast, now slow — 

Singing of Baby Bunting, 
soft and furry 
In rabbit cloak, 
0. .ock-a-byed amid the toss and flurry 
Of wind-swept oak ? 

Of B^y Blue sleeping with his horn beside him ; 

Of my son John, 
Who went to bed (let all good boys deride him) 

With stockings on ; 

Of sweet Bo-Peep, following her lambkins stray- 
ing; 

Of Dames in shoes, 
Of cows, considerate, 'mid the Piper's playing, 

Which time to choose : 



A grown-up child has place still, which no other 

May dare refuse, 
1, grown-up, bring this offering to our Mother, 

To Mother Goose, 

And, standing with the babies at that olden, 

Immortal knee, 
I seem to feel her smile, benign and golden. 

Falling on me. 

Susan Coolidqe 

" ♦ ^ - S!^ •' i f « 

]^fanling !|im$rff itx ©rum* 

||EAR little bright-eyed Willie 
Always so full of glee, 
Always so very mischievous, 
The pride of our home is he. 

One bright summer day we found him 

Close by the garden wall. 
Standing so grave and dignified 

Beside a sunflower tall. 



Of Gotham's wise men bowing o'er the billow, 

Or him, less wise, 
Who chose rough bramble-bushes for a pillow, 

And scratched his eyes. 

It may be, while she sings, that through the 
portal 

Soft footsteps glide. 
And, all invisible to grown-up mortal, 

At cradle side 

Sits Mother Goose herself, the dear old mother. 

And rocks ajad croons, 
In tones which Baby hearkens, but no other, 

Her old-new tunes ! 

I think it must be so, else why, years after, 

Do we retrace 
And ring with shadowy, recollected laughter, 

Thoughts of that face ; 

Seen, yet unseen, beaming across the ages 

Brimful of fun 
And wit and wisdom, bafiiing all the sages 

Under the sun ? 



His tiny feet he had covered 

With the moist and cooling sand ; 

The stalk of the great, tall sunflower 
He grasped with his chubby hand. 

When he saw us standing near him, 

Gazing so wonderingly 
At his babyship, he greeted us 

With a merry shout of glee. 

We asked our darling what pleased him 
He replied with a face aglow, 

" Mamma, I'm going to be a man ; 
I've planted myself to grow /" 



— i-o-»- 



73 



CHILDHOOD. 

Happy those early days, when we 
Breathed in our guiltless Infancy! 
Who would love to travel back, 
And tread again that long-passed track- 
Before the tongue had learned to say 
Aught that the conscience could bewray, 
Or the sad knowledge to dispense 
A several sin to every sense. 



^^ A GUAPMIC DESCRIPTION OF A UABY. ^ 

% r 

T a — ' ■ > a«3- < ■ . — " T 



I- 




URRAH! Light 
upon the vvorld 
again ! It's a 
glorious world ! 
magnificent ! 
quite too beauti- 
ful to leave ; and, 
besides, I would 
rather stay, if 
only to thank 
God a little longer 
for this glorious light, this pure air that 
can echo back my loudest hurrah. And 
then, my boy — but haven't I told you? 
Why, sir, I've got a boy. A BOY ! ha, ha ! 
I shout it out to you — A BOY ; fourteen 
pounds, and the iliother a great deal better 
than could be expected ! And, I say, sir, 
*t's mine ! Hurrah, and hallelujah forever ! 
3, sir, such legs, such arms, and such a head ! 
and O, good heavens ! he has his mother^ s 
lips ! I can kiss them forever ! and then, 
sir, look at his feet, his hands, his chin, his 
eyes, his everything in fact, so, ^^ so perfectly 
O. K. !" Give me joy, sir ; no you needn't, 
either ! I am full now ; I run over ; and 
they say that I ran over a number of old 
wom*^n, half killed the mother, pulled the 
doctor by the nose, and upset a 'pothecary 
shop in the corner ; and then, didn't I ring 
the tea-bell? Didn't I blow the horn? 
Didn't I dance, shout, laugh, and cry, 
altogether? The women they had to tie 
me up. I don't believe that ; but who is 
going to shut his moutli when he has a live 
baby ? You should have heard his lungs, 
sir, at the first mouthful of fresh air ; such 
a bur.'t I A little tone in his voice, but 
not }T,in ; excess of joy, sir, from too great 
sen^.ation. The air-bath was so sudden, you 
know. 



Think of all this beautiful machinery 
starting oif at once in full motion ; all his 
thousand outside feelers aus\yering to the 
touch of cool air ; the flutter and crash at 
the ear, and that curious contrivance, the 
eye, looking out wonderingly and bewildered 
on the great world, so glorious to his un- 
worn perceptions. His network of nerves, 
his wdieels and pulleys, his air pumps and 
valves, his engines and reservoirs; and 
within all, that beautiful fountain, with its 
jets and running streams, dashing and 
coursing; throuo;h the whole leno;th and 
breadth, without stint or pause, making 
altogether, sir, exactly fourteen. Did I ever 
talk brown to you, sir, or blue, or any 
other of the Devil's colors? You say I 
have. Beg your pardon, sir, but you are 
mistaken in the individual. I am this day, 
sir, multiplied by two; I am duplicate; I 
am number one of an indefinite series, and 
there's my continuation. And you observe, 
sir, it is not a block, nor a blockhead, nor a 
painting, nor a bust, nor a fragment of any- 
thing, however beautiful ; but a combination 
of all the arts and sciences in one ; painting, 
sculpture, music, (hear him cry !) mineralogy, 
chemistry, mechanics, (see him kick !) geo- 
graphy, and the use of the globes, (see him 
nurse !) and withal, he is a perpetual motion, 
a timepiece that will never run down. And 
who wound it up ? But words are but a 
mouthino^ and a mockery. "• ^k * * * 

When a man is nearly crushed under 
obligations, it is presumed he is unable to 
speak ; but he may bend over very care- 
fully for fear of falling, nod m a small 
way and say nothing, and tlien if he is 
of sufficient presence of mind to lay a 
hand uj)on his heart, and look down at an 
angle of forty-five degrees with a motion 



A GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF A BABY. 



of the lips, muttered poetry, showing the 
wish and the inability, it will be (well done) 
very graoofully expressive. 

Witli it^y boy in his first integuments, 
I assume that position, make the nod 
aibresaid, and leave you the poetry un mut- 
tered. , 

Knickerbocker. 
_^ cx;')(TXj ^ 




PHILIP MY KMG, 

"Who bears upon his baby brow the round 
And top of sovereignty." 

Look at me with thy large brown eyes, 

Philip, my king ! 
Romid whom the enshadowing purple lies 
Of babyhood's royal dignities: 
Lay on my neck thy tiny hand, 

With Love's invisible sceptre laden ; 
I am thine Esther to command 
Till thou shalt find a queen hand-maiden, 
Philip, my king ! 

Oh, the day when thou goest a-wooing, 

Philip, my king ! 
Wlien those beautiful lips 'gin suing, 
And, some gentle heart's bars undoing, 
Thou dost enter, love-crown'd, and there 

Sittest, love-glorified !— Rule kindly, 
Tenderly, over thy kingdom fair ; 

For we that love, ah ! we love so blindly, 
Philip, my king 1 

U[> from thy sweet mouth uj) to thy brow, 

Philip, my king! 
The spirit that there lies sleeping now 
May rise like a giant and make men bow 
As to one heaven-chosen amongst his peers. 
My Saul, than thy brethren taller and fairer 



Let me behold thee in future years ! 
Yet thy head necdeth a circlet rarer, 
Philip, my king! 

A wreath, not of gold, but palm. One day, 

Philip, my king ! 
Thou, too, must tread, as we trod, a way 
Thorny, and cruel, and cold, and gray ; 
Rebels within thee and foes without 
Will snatch at thy crown. But march or 
glorious, 
Martyr, yet monarch ! till angels shout 

As thou sitt'st at the feet of God victorious, 
"Philip, the king!" 

Dinah Mulock Craik. 
^ — ^-f> 

^ r.j>^ . OUR BABES. 

^J^^UR babes shall richest comforts bring 
M^J^ If tutor'd right, and prove a spring 
^|jf^ Whence pleasures ever rise : 
w But form their mind with studious care, 
1 To all that's manly, good, and fair, 
1 And train them for the skies. 

While they our wisest hours engage, 
They'll jcy our youth, support our age. 

And crown our hoary hairs ; 
They'll grow in virtue every day, 
And thus our fondest loves repay, 

And recompense our cares. Cotton. 





THE DEAREST BABY. 

fOUTH and North, 
East and West, 
Where is the baby 
That I love best? 

A little papoose 

Under the trees? 
A Chinese beauty « 

Beyond the seas? 

'An English child 

Among the mills? 
A Switzer baby 

Between the hills? 

A dark-eyed darling 

m Southern vales? 
An Iceland baby 

In Northern gales? 

What nonsense talk 

To speak of these ! 
The dearest baby 

Is on mv knees. Mrs. M. F. Bum 




EAR BILL: your father's volunteer musket of him 
Here I am in Lincoln- without his knowing it ; but be sure any 
shire. Now I'll tell you how to bring the ramrod, as we've mislaid 
what I w^ant. I want you ours by firing it oif. Don't forget some 
to come down here for the bird-lime, Bill, and some fish-hooks, and 
holidays. Don't be afraid, some different sorts of shot, and some gun- 
Ask your sister to ask powder, and a gentle-box, and some flints, 
your mother to ask your father to let you some May-flies, and a powder-horn, and a 
come. It's only ninety miles. If you're landing-net and a dog-whistle, and some 
out of pocket-money, you can walk, and porcupine-quills, and a bullet mould, and a 
beg a lift now and then, or swing by the trolling- winch, and a shot-belt, and a tin- 



dickeys. Put on corduroys, and don't care 
for cut behind. The two prentices, George 
and Nick, are here to be made farmers of, 
and brother Frank is took home from 
school to help in agriculture. We like farm- 
ing ever so much ; it's capital fun. Us four 
have got a gun, and go out shooting ; it's a 
famous good one, and sure to go off if you 
don't full cock it. Tiger is to be our 
shooting dog as soon as he has left off kill- 
ing the sheep. He's a real savage, and 
worries cats beautiful. Before father comes 
down, we mean to bait our bull with him. 

There's plenty of new rivers about, and 
we're going a fishing as soon as we have 
mended our top joint. We've killed one 
of our sheep on the sly to get gentles. 
We've a pony, too, to ride upon when Vv^e 
can catch him, but he's loose in the paddock, 
and has neither mane nor tail to signify to 



can. You pay for 'em. Bill, and I'll owe 
it you. 

Your old friend and school-fellow, 
Harry. 



Thomas Hood 



-^ 




fi. patient paby. 

POOR little baby 
£^ — such a tiny 
'^^', old-faced mite, 
with a counte- 
nance that seem- 
ed to be scarcely 
anything but cap 
border, and a 
little lean, long- 
fingered hand, 
always clenched under its chin. It would 
lay hold of. Isn't it prime, Bill ? You lie in this attitude all day, with its bright 
must come. If your mother won't give specks of eyes open, wondering (as I used 
your father leave to allow you, run away, to imagine) how it came to be so small and 
There's a pond full of frogs, but we won't weak. Whenever it was moved it cried, 
pelt them till you come ; but let it be before but at all other times it was so patient, that 
Sunday, as there's our own orchard to rob, the sole desire of its life appeared to be, to 
and the fruits to be gathered on Monday, lie quiet and think. It had curious little 
If you like sucking raw eggs, we know dark veins in its face, and curious little 
where the hens lay, and mother don't ; and dark marks under its eyes, like faint 
I'm bound there's lots of birds' nests. Do remembrances of poor Caddy's inky days, 
come. Bill, and I'll show you the wasp's and altogether, to those \vho Avere not used 
nest, and everything to make you com- to it, it was quite a piteous little sight, 
fortable. I dare say you could borrow Chaeles Dickens. 

76 




Iq Tje Cradle-Boat!. 



OH, the bonnie sailor boy, and oh, the bonnie boatie ! 
Swing high, swing low — launch away to sea ! 
Who but mother, staunch and true, shall row the bonnie boatie, 
Sailing to the lily-land, where lovely dreams may be ? 

Under golden moon and stars, and down a golden river : . 

Swing high, swing low — mother watch will keep. 
Drowsy leaves are drooping near, and purple primroses quiver: 

Drop the anchor softly in the quiet cove of sleep ! 

Oh, the bonnie sailor, and oh, the bonnie boatie ! 

Swing high, swing low — rosy morning beams. 
Many miles and home again, it^s row the bonnie boatie : 

Mother clasps her sailor from the pretty port of Dreams ! 

GEORGE COO PER, 




-^THE+GREERBOYh 



^^ONE are the glorious Greeks of old, 
^^ Glorious in mien and mind ; 

Their bones are mingled with the mould, 
Their dust is on the wind ; 
The forms they hewed from living stone 
Survive the waste of years alone, 
And scattered with their ashes, show 
What greatness perished long ago. 

Yet fresh the myrtles there — the springs 

Gush brightly as of yore ; 
Flowers blossom from the dust of kings, 

As many an age before. 
There nature moulds as nobly now, 
As e'er of old, the human brow : 
And copies still the martial form 
That braved PlalaBr's battle storm. 

Boy ! thy first looks were taught to seek 
Their heaven in Hellas's skies ; 

Her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek, 
Her sunshine lit thine eyes ; 



Thine ears have drunk the woodland strains 
Heard by old poets, and thy veins 
Swell with the blood of demigods. 
That slumber in thy country's sods. 

Now is thy nation free — though late — 

Thy elder brethern broke — 
Broke, ere thy spirit felt its weight, 

The intolerable yoke. 
And Greece, decayed, dethroned, doth see 
Her youth renewed in such as thee : 
A shoot of that old vine that made 
The nations silent in its shade. 

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 



Jlr^l^- 



A CHILD'S THOUGHT. 



THERE is a beautiful snow-white wing 
Across the heavens lying ; 
It must be one of the day's great wings, 
For they say the hours are Hying. 

M. F. BUfTS. 



77 



^¥HICH<^SH]lLLtIT*BE?i>- 



' YkJiIICB: shall it be? which shall it be?" 
Vl I looked at John,— John looked at me. 
(Dear, patient John, who loves me yet 
As well as though my locks were jet.) 
And when I found that I mu^t speak, 
My voice seemed strangely low and weak; 
" Tell me again what Eobert said ; " 
And then I listening bent my head. 
" This is his letter : " 

" I will give 
A house and land while you shall hve 
If, in return, from out your seven, 
One child to me for aye is given." 

I looked at John's old garments worn, 

I though of all that John had borne 

Of poverty, and work, and care. 

Which I, though wilhng, could not -share; 

Of seven hungry mouths to feed, 

Of seven httle children's need, 

And then of this. 

i " Come, John," said I, 
''We'll choose among them as they lie 
Asleep ; " so walking hand in hand, 
Dear John and I surveyed our band. 

First to the cradle lightly stepped, 

"\^liere Lihan, the baby slept; 

Her damp curls lay, like gold alight, 

A glory 'gainst the pillow white; 

Softly her father stooped to lay 

His rough hand down in loving way. 

When dream or whisper made her stir, 

And huskily he said, " :N"ot her." 

We stooped beside the trundle-bed, 

And one long ray of lamp-light shed 

Athwart the boyish faces there, 

In sleep so pitiful and fair. 

I saw on Jamie's rough red cheek 

A tear undried ; ere John could speak, . 

"He's but a baby too," said I, 

And kissed him as we hurried by. 

Pale, patient Eobby's angel face 

Still in his sleep bore suflering's trace ; 

"IS'o, for a thousand crowns, not Au/i," 

He wiiispered, while our eyes were dim. 



-^ 



Poor Dick ! sad Dick! our wa^^ward son, 
Turbulent, reckless, idle one — 
Could he be spared ? " JS^ay, he who gave 
Bids us befriend him to the grave; 
Only a mother's heart can be 
Patient enough for such as he ; ■ 
And so," said John, ''I would not dare 
To send him from her bedside prayer." 
Then stole we softly up above. 
And kneft by Mary, child of love; 
"Perhaps for her 'twould better be," 
I said to John. Quite silently 

He lifted up a curl, that lay 

Across her cheek in wilftil way. 

And shook his head : "]S^ay, live, not thee; 

The while my heart beat audibly. 

Only one more, our eldest lad. 

Trusty and truthfiil, good and glad,— 

So like his father : "Xo, John, no; 

I cannot, wiU not, let him go!" 

And so we wrote, in courteous way. 
We could not give one child away; 
And afterward toil lighter seemed, 
Thinking of that of which jve dreamed; 
Happy, in truth, that not one face 
We missed from its accustomed place ; 
Thankful to work for all the seven, 
Trusting then to Oxe in heaven. 



=cr^=^^:j^' 



.(^, 



76 



'^HONEY NELLIE. 

■ ^^i^ 

THERE was once a little maiden, 
They called her "Honey Nellie/' 
Who pounds of sugar saved her folks 

When they were making jelly; 
For her smile had so much sweetness 

That the currants and the gooseberries, 
If she but smiled upon them once, 
Turned sweet as ripest cherries. 

MARY A. LATHBURY 




r 



TO LAURA, TWO YEAKS OF AGE. 



— o 



RIGHT be the skies 
that cover thee, 
Child of the sunny 
brow — 
Bright as the dream 
flung over thee — 
By all that meets 
thee now — 
Thy heart is beating 
joyously, 
Thy voice is like a 
bird's — 
And sweetly breaks 
the melody 
Of thy imperfect words. 
I know no fount that gushes out 
As gladly as thy tiny shout. 

I would that thou might'st ever be 

As beautiful as noAv, — 
That time might ever leave as free 

Thy yet unwritten brow : 
I would life were " all poetry " 

To gentle measure set, 
That nought but chasten'd melody 

Might stain thine eye of jet — 
Nor one discordant note be spoken. 
Till God the cunning harp hath broken. 

I would — but deeper things than these 

With woman's lot are wove ; 
Wrought of intensest sympathies, 

And nerved by purest love — 
By the strong spirit's discipline, 

By the fierce wrong forgiven, 
By all that wrings the heart of sin, 

Is woman wpn to heaven. 
" Her lot is on thee," lovely child — 
Qod keep thy spirit undefiled I 

I fear thy gentle loveliness, 

Thy witching tone and air, 
Thine eye's beseeching earnestness 

May be to thee a snare. 
The silver stars may purely shine, 

The waters taintless flow — 
But they who kneel at woman's shine, 

Wreathe poisons as they bow — 
She may fling back the gift again 
But the crush'd flower will oftenest stain. 

70 



-<> 



What shall preserve thee, beautiful child? 

Keep thee as thou art now ? 
Bring thee, a spirit undefiled, 

At God's pure throne to bow? 
The world is but a broken reed, 

And life grows early dim — 
Who shall be near thee in thy need. 

To lead thee up to Him ? 
He, who Himself was ''undefiled?" 
With Him we trust thee, beautiful child I 

N. P. WiLLia. 



Stormy-Day Party. 

BABY and I are invited 
To a fine part}', they say, 
I'm sure we will be delighted 

To go on this stormy day. 
" Give my love — I'll come ; baby, too. 
Joins me with a hearty, ' a-goo.' " 

" 'Tis not very far — just walk out here," 

Said dancing little Freddy, 
"Have this easy-chair, mamma dear. 

The party is quite ready. 
Mrs. Hippo, mamma ; Miss Rose, too," 
I bowed, and baby said, " a-goo." 

Freddy did so very funny look. 

In papa's coat and high hat, 
Grace, as Mrs. Hippo and chief cook, 

In Bridget's new calico, sat. 
We talked and chatted as people do. 
Baby repeating his sweet "a-goo." 

Tea was served on dainty dishes, 
Nuts, pop-corn and bits of cake, 

Peppermints and candy fishes. 
Were spread for us to partake. 

We sipped and ate, enjoyed it, too. 

And baby laughed and said " a-goo." 

A step was heard out in the hall, 
Stamping the snow from the feet, 

"Papa's come," we shouted, and all 
Invited him to the treat. 

He gave us kisses, not a few. 

But best of all was baby's "a-goo." 

" I'm so glad," the dear papa said, 
" While storming so wild without. 

We have sunshine within. Fred, 
Ask mamma to play ; no doubt 

We can join in the singing, too, 

And baby help with his ' a-goo.' " 

" Squid Scotch.' 



SUNSHINE IN THE HOUSE, 



^ 



^p" 




RIGHTER than the sunshine on a stormy April day, 

Is the smile with which a little maid can drive her tears away; 
Sweeter than the music of a silver-throated bird, 
Comes forth her gentle answer to a wrath-provoking word ; 
More welcome than the perfume breathed from violet or rose, 
Is the influence of sweetness that shall follow where she goes : 
And as the little streamlet sings while watering its flowers, 
So she can make her work seem light, and sing through busy hours. 
Then set a guard on little lips, and little actions, too. 
With sunshine bright and music sweet begin each day anew ; 
For nothing half so dear is found, in garden, field or wood, 
As the precious little boy or girl who^s trying to be good. 

CLARA LOUISE BURNHAM. 



'^^" 



One by One. 

|NE by one the sands are flowing, 
One by one the moments fall ; 
Some are coming, some are going ; 
Do not strive to grasp them all. 

One by one thy duties wait thee. 
Let thy whole strength go to each. 

Let no future dreams elate thee. 

Learn thou first what these can teach. 

One by one (bright gifts from heaven) 
Joys are sent thee here below ; 

Take them readily when given. 
Ready, too, to let them go. 

One by one thy griefs shall meet thee. 
Do not fear an armed band ; 

One will fade as others greet thee; 
Shadows passing through the land. 



Do not look at life's long sorrow ; 

See how small each moment's pain; 
God will help thee for to-morrow, 

So each day begin again. 

Every hour that fleets so slowly 
Has its tasks to do or bear ; 

Luminous the crown and holy, 
When each gem is set with care. 

Do not linger with regretting. 
Or for passing hours despond ; 

Nor the daily toil forgetting. 
Look too eagerly beyond. 

Hours are golden links, God's token, 
Reaching heaven ; but one by one 

Take them, lest the chain be broken 
Ere the pilgrimage be done. 

ADELAIDE A. PROCTOR. 



80 



^ 



•♦»£ 




OW, the bright Morning Star, day's harbinger, 

Comes dancing from the east and leads with her 
The floVry May, who from his green lap throws 
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. 
Hail, beauteous May ! thou dost inspire 
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire. 
Woods and groves are of thy dressing, 
Hill and dale both boast thy blessing! 
Thus we salute thee with our early song, 



And welcome thee, and wish thee long. 



JoHlf MiLTCor. 




MAY-DAY. 

|p\UEEN of fresh flowers, 
*^ Whom vernal stars obey, 
Bring thy warm showers. 
Bring thy genial ray ; 
In Nature's greenest livery drest. 
Descend on Earth's expectant breast. 
To Earth and Heaven a welcome guest, 
Thou merry naonth of May ! 

Mark ! how we meet thee 

At dawn of dewy day ! 

Hark ! how we greet thee 

With our roundelay ! 

While all the goodly things that be, 

In earth, and air, and ample sea, 

Are waking up to welcome thee. 

Thou merry month of May I 

Flocks on the mountains 

And birds upon their spray. 
Tree, turf, and fountains 
All hold holiday ; 
And Love, the Life of living things — 
Love waves his torch, and claps his wings 
And loud and wide thy praises sings, 
Thou merry month of May I 



R. HEBBi. 



81. 




©m©^l«i::|f 




,HEN the morning, 
half in shadow, 
Ean along the hill 

and meadow, 
And with milk-white 

fingers parted 
Crimson roses, gold- 
en-hearted ; 
Opening over ruins 

hoarr 
Every purple morn- 
ing-glory, 
And outshaking from 

the bushes 
Singing larks and 
pleasant thrushes ; 
That's the time our little baby. 
Strayed from Paradise, it may be, 
Came with eyes like heaven above her, 
Oh we could not choose but love her 1 



Not- enough of earth for sinning, 
Always gentle, always winning. 
Never needing our reproving, 
Ever lively, ever loving ; 
Starry eyes and sunset tresses. 
White arms, made for light caresses, 
Lips, that knew no word of doubting, 
Often kissing, never pouting ; 
Beauty even in completeness. 
Overfull of childish sweetness ; 
That's the way our little baby, 
Far too pure for earth, it may be, 
Seemed to us, who while about her 
Deemed we could not do without her. 

When the morning, half in shadow, 
Ean along the hill and meadow, 
And with milk-white fingers parted 
Crimson roses, golden hearted ; 
Opening over ruins hoary 
Every purple morning-glory, 
And outshaking from the bushes 
Singing larks and pleasant thrushes ; 
That's the time our little baby. 
Pining here for heaven, it may be. 
Turning from our bitter weeping, 
Closed her eyes as when in sleeping. 
And her white hands on her bosom 
Folded like a summer blossom. 
Now the litter she doth lie on 
Strewed with roses, bear to Zion, 



Go, as past a pleasant meadow, 
Through the valley of the shadow ; 
Take her softly, holy angels. 
Past the ranks of God's evangels ; 
Past the saints and martyrs holy 
To the Earth-born, meek and lowly, 
We would have our precious blossom 
Softly laid in Jesus' bosom. Phcebe Caet 



'ttooi ra^[iiiri5^ja5^3(g. 




half-an2;elic 



REAYED — a 

sight — 
In vests of pure baptismal 

white, 
The mother to the Font doth 

bring 
The little helpless, nameless 

thing 
With hushes soft, and mild 

caressing. 
At once to get — a name and 
blessing 
Close by the babe the priest doth stand. 
The cleansing water at his hand 
Which must assoil the soul within 
From every stain of Adam's sin. 
The infant eyes the mystic scenes. 
Nor knows what all this wonder means ; 
And now he smiles, as if to say, 
" I am a Christian made this day ;" 
Now frighted clings to nurse's hold, 
Shrinking from the water cold. 
Whose virtues, rightly understood, 
Are, as Bethesda's waters, good. 
Strange words— The World, The Flesh. Tho 

Devil- 
Poor babe, what can it know of evil? 
But we must silently adore 
Mysterious truths, and not explore. 
Enough for him, in after-times, 
When he shall read these artless rhymeS/ 
If, looking back upon this day 
With quiet conscience, he can say, 
" I have in part redeemed the pledge 
Of my baptismal privilege ; 
And more and more will strive to flee 
All which my sponsors kind did then rei/ounce 
for me." Chaeles Laivib j 

82 . 1 



LIFE'S HAPPIEST PERIOD, 




JlIFE'S IaPPIEST I^ERIOD. 

HERE is no pleas- 
ure that I have 
experienced like a 
child's mid-sum- 
mer holiday — the 
time, I mean, when 
two or three of us 
used to go away up 
''^^^isffl^sis^ the brook and take 
our dinners with us, and come home at 
night, tired, happy, scratched beyond 
recognition, with a great nosegay, three 
little trout, and one shoe, the other having 
been used for a boat till it had gone down 
with all hands out of soundings. How 
poor our Derby days, our Greenwich din- 
ners, our evening parties, where there are 
plenty of nice girls, after that ! Depend 
upon it, a man never experiences such 
pleasure or grief after fourteen years as 
he does before, unless in some cases, in 
his first love-making, when the sensation 
is new to him. 

CHARLES KINGSLEY. 



c 



'HILDHOOD AND HIS VISITORS. 
O 



§NCE on a time, when sunny May 
Was kissing up the April showers, 
I saw fair Childhood hard at play 

Upon a bank of blushing flowers : 
Happy. — he knew not whence or how, — 
And smiling, — who could choose but 
love him? 
For not more glad than Childhood's brow, 
Was the blue heaven that bloomed 
above him. 

Old Time in most appalling wrath, 
That valley's green repose invaded ; 

The brooks grew dry upon his path. 
The birds were mute, the lilies faded. 

But time so swiftly winged his flight, 
In haste a Grecian tomb to batter, 



That Childhood watched his paper kite. 
And just knew nothing of the matter. 

With curling lip and glancing eye 

Guilt gazed upon the scene a minute ; 
But Childhood's glance of purity 

Had such a holy spell within it, 
That the dark demon to the air 

Spread forth again his baffled pinion, 
And hid his envy and despair, 

Self-tortured, in his own dominion. 

Then stepped a gloom}^ phantom up, 

Pale, cyprus-crowned Night's awful 
daughter. 
And proffered him a fearful cup 

Full to the brim of bitter water: 
Poor childhood bade her tell her name ; 

And when the beldame muttered, 
"Sorrow," 
He said, " Don't interrupt my game; 

I'll taste it, if I must, to-morrow." 

The Muse of Pindus thither came, 

And wooed him with the softest numbers 
That ever scattered wealth and fame 

Upon a youthful poet's slumbers ; 
Though sweet the music of the lay, 

To Childhood it was all a riddle, 
And "Oh," he cried, "do send away 

That noisy woman with the fiddle. 

Then Wisdom stole his bat and baU, 

And taught him, with most sage en- 
deavor. 
Why bubbles rise and acorns fall, 

And why no toy may last forever. 
She talked of all the wondrous laws 

Which Nature's open book discloses, 
And Childhood, ere she made a pause, 

Was fast asleep among the roses. 

Sleep on, sleep on ! Oh ! Manhood's 
dreams 

Are all of earthly pain or pleasure, 
Of Glory's toils, Ambition's schemes, 

Of cherished love, of hoarded treasure : 
But to the coueh where Childhood lies 

A more delicious trance is given, 
Lit up by rays from seraph eyes. 

And glimpses of remembered Heaven] 

r R A E D . 



§5 




Little tfillie tfalgns Up. 




fY OME have thought that in the dawning, 
V)L In our being's freshest glow, 
VO Grod is nearer httle children 

Than their parents ever know. 
And that if you listen sharply, 

Better things than you can teach, 
And a sort of mystic wisdom 

Trickles through their careless speech. 

How it is I cannot answer. 

But I knew a little child, 
Who, among the thyme and clover, 

And the bees was running wild. 
And he came one summer evening, 

\Yith his ringlets o'er his eyes. 
And his hat was torn in pieces 

Chasing bees and butterflies. 

" Now I'll go to bed, dear mother, 

For I'm very tired of play ! " 
And he said his, " Now I lay me," 

In a kind of careless way. 
And he drank the cooling water, 

. From his little silver cup. 
And said, gayly, " When it's morning. 

Will the Angels take me up ? " 

Down he sank mth roguish laughter 

In his little trundle bed. 
And the kindly god of slumber 

Showered the poppies o'er his head. 
" Wliat could mean his speaking strangely?' 

Asked his musing mother then — 
" Oh 'twas nothing but his prattle; 

What can he of Angels ken ? " 

There he lies, how sweet and placid, 

And his breathing comes and goes 
Like a zephyr moving softly. 

And his cheek is like a rose ; 
3ut she leaned her ear to listen 

If his breathing could be heard : 
^ Oh," she murmured, " if the Angels 

Took my darling at his word ! " 

iight within its folding mantle 
Hath the sleepers both beguiled, 

Ind within its soft embracing 
Best the mother and the child ; 



Up she starteth from her dreaming, 
For a sound hath struck her ear — 

And it comes from little Willie, 
Lying on his trundle near. 

Up she springeth, for it strikes upon 

Her troubled ear again. 
And his breath, in louder fetches. 

Travels from his lungs in pain. 
And his eyes are fixing upward 

On some face bej^ond the room ; 
And the blackness of the spoiler, 

From his cheek hath chased the bloom. 

Never more his, '' Now I lay me," 

Shall be said from mother's knee. 
Never more among the clover 

Will he chase the humble-bee. 
Through the night she watched her darling, 

Now despairing, now in hope ; 
And about the break of morning 

Did the Angels take him up. 

E. H. SEARS 

o^K 

OW I lay" — say it, darling ; 

'• Lay me," lisped the tiny lips 
Of my daughter, kneeling, bending 
O'er her folded finger-tips. 

" Down to sleep — to sleep," she murmured, 
And the curly head dropped low. 

" I pray the Lord," I gently added, 
*' You can say it all, I know." 

"Pray the Lord" — the words came faintly. 

Fainter still — " My soul to keep ; " 
Then the tired head fairly nodded. 

And the child was fast asleep. 

But the de^vy eyes half opened 
When I clasped her to my breast. 

And the dear voice softly whispered, 
" Mamma, God knows all the rest." 

Oh, the trusting, sweet confiding 
Of that child-heart! Would that I 

Thus might trust my Heavenly Father, 
He who hears my humblest cry. 




84 




ING him a cradle song, 

Tender and low ; . 
Tell him how Jesus came 

Long, long ago : 
Came as a little one, 

Lowly and mild, 
God's own eternal Son, 

Yet Mary's child. 

Long years may come and pass, 

And there shall be 
Under tlie churchyard grass 

Slumber for thee ; 
Yet shall thy song live on 

Still in his life, 
Sweeter when thou art gone 

Out of the strife. 



Sorrow will come with time, 

Faith may grow cold ; 
Truth, like a silver chimCj^ 

Calls to the fold ; 
Calls to the roving sheep 

(Gone far astray), 
" Come, and the Lord shall keep 

Spoilers away/' 

Say not the words are weak. 

Scorned of the wise ; 
Doth not the Master speak 

In lowdy guise? 
He shall thy weakness make 

Holy and strong, 
And thy poor song shall wake 



A sweeter song. 



SARAH DOWDNEY. 



--C^'i^^^^il^^-- 



EVA AND TOPSY. 




YA stood looking at Topsy. There stood the two children, rep- 
resentatives of the two extremes of society. The fair, 
high-bred child, with her golden head, her deep eyes, 
her spiritual, noble brow, and prince-like movements, 
and her black, keen, subtle, cringing, yet acute 
neighbor. They stood the representatives of their 
races. The Saxon, born of ages of cultivation, 
command, education, physical and moral eminence; 
the xVfric, born of ages of oppression, submission 
ignorance, toil, and vice ! 

H. B. STOWE, 

85 



M 



BABY MMImIs^ 



w 




AVE you not heard the poets tell 
How came the dainty Baby Bell 

Into this world of ours ? 
The gates of Heaven were left ajar ; 
With folded hands and di-eamy eyes, 
Wandering out of Paradise, 
She saw this planet, like a star, 

Hung in the glistening depths of even, — 
Its bridges, running to and fro, 
O'er which the white-wing'd angels go, 

Bearing the holy dead to heaven. 
She touch'cl a bridge of flowers, — ^those feet, 
So light they did not bend the bells 
Of the celestial asphodels, 
They fell like dew upon the flowers : 
Then all the air grew strangely sweet! 
And thus came dainty Baby Bell 
Into this world of ours. 

She came, and brought delicious May. 

The swallows built beneath the eaves ; 

Like sunlight, in and out the leaves 
The robins went the livelong day ; 
The lily swung its noiseless bell ; 

And o'er the porch the trembling vine 

Seem'd bursting with its veins of wine. 
How sweetly, softly, twilight fell ! 
Oh, earth was full of singing-birds 
And opening spring-tide flowers, 
When the dainty Baby Bell 

Came to this world of ours ! 

Oh, Baby, dainty Baby Bell, 
How fair she grew from day to day ! 
What woman-nature fill'd her eyes, 
What poetry within them lay ! 
Those deep and tender twilight eyes. 

So full of meaning, pure and bright 

As if she yet stood in the light 
Of those oped gates of Paradise. 
And so we loved her more and more : 
Ah, never in our hearts before 

Was love so lovely born : 
We felt we had a link between 
This real world and that unseen — 

The land beyond the morn ; 
And for the love of those dear ej^es, 
For love of her whom God led forth, 
(The mother's being ceased on earth 
When Baby came from Paradise), — 
For love of Him who smote our lives 

And woke the chords of joy and pain. 
We said. Dear Christ ! — our hearts bent down 

Like violets after rain. 



And now the orchards which were white 
And red with blossoms when she came, 
Were rich in autumn's mellow prime ; 
The clustered apples burnt like flame, 
The soft-cheek'd peaches blush'd and fell, 
The ivory chestnut burst its shell. 
The grapes hung purpling in the grange; 
And time wrought just as rich a change 

In little Baby Bell. 
Her lissome form more perfect grew. 

And in her features we could trace. 

In soften'd curves, her mother's face 
Her angel-nature ripen'd too. 
We thought her lovely when she came, 
But she was holy, saintly now : — 
Around her pale angelic brow 
We saw a slender ring of flame ! 
God's hand had taken away the seal 

That held the portals of her speech; 
And oft she said a few strange words 

W^iose meaning lay beyond our reach. 
She never was a child to us, 
We never held her being's key ; 
We could not teach her holy things : 

She was Christ's self in purity. 
It came upon us by degrees. 
We saw its shadow ere it fell, — 
The knowledge that our God had sent 
His messenger for Baby Bell. 
We shudder'd with unlanguaged pain. 
And ah our hopes were changed to fears, 
And all our thoughts ran into tears 

Like sunshine into rain. 
We cried aloud in our belief, 
"Oh, smite us gently, gently, God! 
Teach us to bend and kiss the rod, 
And perfect grow through grief." 
Ah, how we loved her, God can tell ; 
Her heart was folded deep in ours. 

Our hearts are broken. Baby Bell! 

At last he came, the messenger. 

The messenger from unseen lands : 
And what did dainty Baby Bell ? 
She only cross'd her little hands. 
She only look'd more meek and fair! 
We parted back her silken hair, 
We wove the roses round her brow, — ■ 
White buds, the summer's drifted snow, — 
Wrapt her from head to foot in flowers' 
And thus went dainty Baby Be!l 
Out of this world of ours ! 

THOMAS BAILEY AL&RICH 



86 



^ 



BJLB^" 



paABY Bye, 

^m Here's a fly; 

Let us watch him, you and I. 

How he crawls 

Up the walls, 

Yet he never falls ! 
I believe with six such legs 
You and I could walk on eggs. 

There lie goes 

On li.s toes, 

Tickling baby's nose. 

Spots of red 

Dot his head ; 

Rainbows on his back are spread; 

That small speck 

Is his neck ; 

See him nod and beck. 
I can show you, if you choose, 
Where to look to find his shoes,— 

Three small pairs, 

Made of hairs ; 

These he always wears. 

Black and brown 

Is his gown ; 

He can wear it upside down ; 

It is laced 

Round his waist ; 

I adkmire his taste. 
Yet though tight his clothes are made, 
He will lose them, I'm afraid. 

If to-night 

He gets sight 

Of the candle-light. 

In the sun 

Webs are spun ; 

What if he gets into one ? 

When it rains 

He complains 

On the window-panes. 
Tongue to talk have you and I ; 
God has given the little fly 

No such things. 

So he sings 

With his buzzing wings. 



He can eat 

Bread and meat ; 

There 's his mouth between his feet. 

On his back 

Is a pack 

Like a pedler's sack. 
Does the baby understand ? 
Then the fly shall kiss her hand ; 

Put a crumb 

On her thumb, 

Maybe he will come. 
Catch him ? No, 
Let him go, 
Never hurt an insect so ; 

But no doubt 

He flies out 

Just to gad about. • 
Now you see his wings of silk 
Drabbled in the baby's milk ; 

Fie, oh fie, 

Foolish fly! 

How will he get dry ? 
All wet flies 
Twist their thighs; 
Thus they wipe their heads and eyes- 

Cats you know 

Wash just so. 

Then their whiskers grow. 
Flies have hairs too short to comb. 
So they fly bareheaded home ; 

But the gnat 

Wears a hat, 

Do you believe that? 
Flies can see 
More than we, 
So how bright their eyes must be ! 

Little fly, 

Ope your eye ; 

Spiders are near by. j 

For a secret I can tell, 
Spiders never use flies well. 

Then away. 

Do not stay. 

Little fly, good-day. 

THEODORE TILTOM.. 



87 




The Adopted Child 




f^^HY would'st thou leave me, oh gentle 
child, 

Thy home on the mountain is bleak and wild — • 
A straw-roofed cabin, with lowly wall; 
Mine is a fair and pillared hall, 
Where many an image of marble gleams. 
And the sunshine of pictures for ever streams." 

"Oh! green is the turf where my brothers 

play, 
Through the long bright hours of the sum- 
mer's day ; 
They find the red cup-moss where they climb. 
And they chase the bee o'er the scented thyme. 
And the rocks where the heath-flower blooms 

they know ; 
Lady, kind lady ! oh let me go." 

" Content thee, boy ! in my bower to dwell 
Here are sweet sounds which thou lovest well : 
Flutes on the air in the stilly noon. 
Harps whicn tne wandering breezes tune. 
And the silvery wood-note of many a bird 
Whose voice was ne'er in thy mountain heard." 

*' Oh ! my mother sings at the twilight's fall, 
A song of the hills far more sweet than all; 
She sings it under our own green tree 
To the babe half slumbering on her knee ; 
I dreamt last night of that music low — 
Lady, kind lady ! oh, let me go." 

"Thy mother is gone from her cares to rest; 
She hath taken the babe on her quiet breast; 
Thou would'st meet her footstep, my boy, no 

more. 
Nor hear her song at the cabin door. 
Come thou with me to the vineyard nigh, 
And we'll pluck the grapes of the richest dye." 

" Is my mother gone from her home away ? — 
But I know that my brothers are there at 

play— 
I know they are gathering the fox-glove's bell, 
Or the long fern leaves by the sparkling well 



Or they launch their boats where the bright 

streams flow — 
Lady, kind lady ! oh, let me go." 

"Fair child, thy brothers are wanderers now; 
They sport no more on the mountain's brow ; 
They have left the fern by the spring's green 

side. 
And the streams where the fairy barks were 

tied. 
Be thou at peace in thy brighter lot, 
For the cabin home is a lonely spot." 

Are they gone, all gone from the the sunny 

hill?— 
But the bird and the blue-fly rove o'er it still ; 
And the red-deer bound in their gladness free, 
And the heath is bent by the singing bee, 
And the waters leap, and the fresh winds blow; 
Lady, kind lady ! oh, let me go." 

FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS. 



TO J. H 



FOUR YEAES OLD :— A NURSERY SONG 

. . . . Pien d'amori, 
Pien di canti, e pien di flori. 

Frugoni, 

Full of little loves of ours, 

Full of songs, and full of flowers. 



H, little ranting Johnny, 
For ever blithe and bonny, 
And singing nonny, nonny, 

With hat just thrown upon ye ; 

Or whistling like the thrushes, 

With a voice in silver gushes ; 

Or twisting random posies 

With daisies, weeds, and roses; 

And strutting in and out so, 

Or dancing all about so ; 



88 



TO J, H, 



With cock-iip nose so lightsome, 

And sidelong e^^es so brightsome, 

And cheeks as ripe as apples, 

And head as rough as Dapple's, 

And arms as sunny shining 

As if their veins they 'd wine in, 

And mouth that smiles so truly 

Heaven seems to have made it newly — 

It breaks into such sweetness 

With merry-lipped completeness 

Ah Jack, ah Gianni mio, 

As blithe as Laughing Trio ! 

— Sir Richard, too, you rattler, 

So christened from the Tattlei-, 

My Bacchus, in his glory, 

My little Cor-di-fiori, 

My tricksome Puck, my Robin, 

Who in and out come bobbing, 

As full of feints and frolics as 

That fibbing rogue Autolycus, 

And play the graceless robber on 

Your grave-eyed brother Oberon, — • 

Ah Dick, ah Dolce-riso, 

How can you, can you be so? 

One cannot turn a minute. 

But mischief — there you 're in it : 

A-getting at my books, John, 

With mighty bustling looks, John, 

Or poking at the roses. 

In midst of which your nose is; 

Or climbing on a table. 

No matter how unstable. 

And turning up your quaint eye 

And half-shut teeth, with "May n't I?" 

Or else you ^re off at play, John, 

Just as you 'd be aU day, John, 

With hat or not, as happens ; 

And there you dance, and clap hands, 

Or on the grass go rolling. 

Or plucking flowers, or bowling, 

And getting me expenses 

W ith losing balls o'er fences ; 

Or, as the constant trade is, 

Are fondled by the ladies 




With " What a young rogue this ia 1*^ 
Reforming him with kisses ; 
Till suddenly you cry out, 
As if you had an eye out, 
So desperately fearful. 
The sound is reall}^ fearful; 
When, lo I directly after. 
It bubbles into laughter. 

Ah, rogue ! and do you know", John, 
Why, 'tis we love you so, John? 
And how it is they let ye 
Do what you like, and pet ye. 
Though aU who look upon ye. 
Exclaim, "Ah, Johnny, Johnny I'* 
It is because you please 'em 
StiU more, John, than you teaze 'em; 
Because, too, when not present. 
The thought of you is pleasant; 
Because, though such an elf, John, 
They think that if yourself, John, 
Had something to condemn, too. 
You'd be as kind to them, too; 
In short, because you're very 
Good-tempered, Jack, and merry; 
And are as quick at giving 
As easy at receiving ; 
And in the midst of pleasure 
Are certain to find leisure 
To think, my boy, of ours. 
And bring us heaps of flowers. 

But see, the sun shines brightly, 
Come, put your hat on rightly. 
And w^e'll among the bushes. 
And hear your friends, the thrushes;. 
And see what flowers the weather 
Has rendered fit to gather ; 
And, when we home must jog, you 
ShaU ride my back, you rogue you — 
Your hat adorned with fine leaves. 
Horse-chestnut, oak, and vine-leaver; 
And so, with green o'erhead, John, 
Shall whistle home to bed, John. 

LEIGH HUNT 



CRADLE SONG. 




FROM THE GERMAN. 

u ^^ Sleep, baby, sleep ! 
Sifi^HY father's watching the sheep, 

Thy mother's shakmg the dream- 
land tree. 

And down drops a little dream for thee. 
Sleep, baby, sleep. 

Sleep, baby, sleep ! 
The large stars are the sheep, 
The little stars are the lambs, I guess, 
The bright moon is the shepherdess. 

Sleep, baby, sleep. 

Sleep, baby, sleep ! 
And cry not like a sheep, 
Else the sheep-dog will bark and whine, 
And bite this naughty child of mine. 

Sleep, baby, sleep ! 

Sleep, baby, sleep ! 
The Saviour loves his sheep ; 
He is the Lamb of God on high 
Who for our sakes came down to die. 

Sleep, baby, sleep '. 

Sleep, baby, sleep \ 
Away to tend the sheep, 
Away thou sheep-dog fierce and wild, 
And do not harm my sleeping child ! 

Sleep, baby, sleep ! 

ELIZABETH PRENTISS. 



THE BIRD CATCHER. 




ENTLY, gently yet, young 
stranger, 
Light of heart and light of 
heel! 
Ere the bird perceives its danger, . 

On it slyly steal. 
Silence ! — ah ! your scheme is failing — 

No ; pursue your pretty prey ; 
See, your shadow on the paling 
Startles it a^vay. 

Caution ! now you're nearer creeping ; 

Nearer yet — how still it seems ! 
Sure, the winged creature's sleeping. 

Wrapt in forest dreams ! 



Golden sights that bird is seeing. 

Nest of green, or mossy bough ; 
Not a thought it hath of fleeing ; 

Yes, you'll catch it now. 

How your eyes begin to twinkle ! 

Silence, and you'll scarcely fail. 
Now stoop dowm, and softly sprinkle 

Salt upon its tail. 
Yes, you have it in your tether, 

Never more to skim the skies ; 
Lodge the salt on that long feather — 

Ha ! it flies ! it flies ! 

Hear it — hark \ among the bushes, 

Laughing at your idle lures ! 
Boy, the self-same feeling gushes 

Through my heart and yours. 
Baffled sportsman, childish Mentor, 

How have I been — hapless fault ! 
Led, like you, my hopes to centre 

On a grain of salt ! 

On what captures I've been counting, 
Stooping here, and creeping there, 

All to see my bright hope mounting 
High into the air ! 

Thus have children of all ages. 
Seeing bliss before them fly. 

Found their hearts but empty cages, 
And their hopes on high ! 

LAMAN BLANCHARD. 

GOLDEN slumbers kiss your eyes, 
Smiles awake you when you rise. 
Sleep, pretty wantons ; do not cry. 
And I will sing a lullaby: 
Rock them, rock them, lullaby. 

Care is heavy, therefore sleep you ; 
You are care, and care must keep you. 
Sleep, pretty wantons ; do not cry. 
And I will sing a lullaby : 
Rock them, rock them, lullaby. 



THOMAS DEKKER. 



90 



DANAE, 



Dpnfie. 



-.— -x> 



[HILST, around her lone ark sweeping, 
Wailed the winds and waters wild, 
Her young cheeks all wan with weeping. 

Danae clasped her sleeping child , 
And "Alas," (cried she,) "my dearest. 

What deep wrongs, what woes, are mine! 
But nor wrongs nor woes thou fearest. 

In that sinless rest of thine. 
Faint the moonbeams break above thee, 

And, within here, all is gloom ; 
But fast wrapt in arms that love thee, 

Little reck'st thou of our doom.' 
Not the rude spray round thee flying. 

Has e'en damped thy clustering hair, — 
On thy purple mantlet lying, 

mine Innocent, my Fair ! 
Yet, to thee were sorrow sorrow. 

Thou would'st lend thy little ear. 
And this heart of thine might borrow 

Haply yet a moment's cheer. 
But no ; slumber on. Babe, slumber ; 

Slumber, Ocean-waves ; and you. 
My dark troubles, without number, — 

Oh, that ye would slumber too ! 
Though with wrongs they've brimmed my 
chalice. 

Grant Jove, that, in future years. 
This boy may defeat their malice. 

And avenge his mother's tears! " 

siMONiDES. (Greek.) 
Translation of w I L L I A M peter. 



MY SERMON. 



I HAVE been siting here for an hour, 
noting down some thoughts for the 
sermon which I hope to write during 
this week, and to preacli next Sunday. I 
have not been able to think very con- 
nectedly, indeed ; for two little feet have 
been pattering round me, two little hands 
pulling at me occasionally, and a little 
voice entreating that I should come and 
have a race upon the green. Of course I 
went ; for like most men who are not 
very great or very bad, I have learned, 
for the sake of the little owner of the 
hands and the voice, to love every little 
child. My sermon will be the better for 
these interruptions. I do not mean to 
say it will be absolutely good, though it 
will be as good as I can make it; but it 
will be better for these races with my 
little girl. 

BOYD, 



^c>^- 



tlTl^lB TYMAKT^i 




ET every sound be dead ; 

Baby sleeps. 
The Emperor softly tread ! 

Baby sleeps. 
Let Mozart's music stop ! 
Let Phidias chisel drop! 

Baby sleeps. 
Demosthenes be dumb ! 
Our tyrant's hour has come I 

Baby sleeps. 
91 



THE RIDE IN A WHEEL-BARROW, 



THE RIDE IN A WHEEL-BARROW. 



-.^ 




iHO does not remember the 
keen relish of the rapid run 
in the wheelbarrow of 
early youth, bumping and 
rolling about, and finally turning a corner 
at full speed and upsetting ? Who does 
not remember the delight of the little 
springless carriage that threatened to dis- 
locate and grind down the bones ? Luxury 
destroys real enjoyment. There is more 
real enjoyment in riding in a wheelbarrow 
than in driving in a carriage-and-four. 



BOYD. 



■^^ 



Oh, fortunate baby ! Sunday lass ! 
The veins of gold through the rocks you'll 
see; 
A.nd when o'er the shining sands you pass, 
You can tell where the hidden springs may 
be. 

And never a fiend or an airy sprite 
May thwart or hinder you all your days, 

Whenever it chances, in mirk midnight. 
The lids of your marvelous eyes you raise. 

You may see, while your heart is pure and 
true. 

The angels that visit this lower sphere. 
Drop down the firmament, two and two, 

Their errands of mercy to work down here. 

This is the dower of a Sunday child; 

What do you think of it, little brow^n head, 
Winking and blinking your eyes so mild, 

Down in the depths of your snowy bed ? 

ALICE WILLIAMS. 



©HE Sunday Baby. 




aOTJ wonderful little Sunday child! 
Half of your fortune scarce you know, 
Although you have blinked and w^inked and 
smiled 
Full seven and twenty days below. 

" The bairn that was born on Sabbath day," 

So say the old wives over their glass — 
" Is bonny and healthy, and ^\dse and gay ! " 
What do you think of that, my lass ? 

Health and wisdom, and beauty and mirth ! 
And (as if that were not enough for a 
dower), 
Because of the holy day of your birth, 

Abroad you may walk in the gloaming's 
hour. 

When we poor bodies, with backward look. 
Shiver and quiver and quake with fear 

Of fiend and fairy, and kelpie and spook. 
Never a thought need you take, my dear — 

For " Sunday's child " may go where it please, 
Sunday's child shall be free from harm ! 

Right down through the mountain side it sees 
The mines unopened where jewels swarm ! 



O 



THE BLIND BOY. 



H, say what is that thing called Light^ 
^Vhich I must ne'er enjoy? 

What are the blessings of the sight, 
Oh, tell your poor blind boy ! 



You talk of wondrous things you see, 
You say the sun shines bright ; 

I feel him warm, but how can he 
Or make it day or night ? 

My day or night myself I make 

AYliene'er I sleep or play ; 
And could I ever keep awake 

With me 'twere always day. 

With heavy sighs I often hear 
You mourn my hapless woe; 

But sure with patience I can bear 
A loss I ne'er can know. 

Then let not what I cannot have 

My cheer of mind destroy ; 
Whilst thus I sing, I am a king. 
Although a poor blind boy. 

COLLEY GIBBER, 



92 




S WISHsji 








ITTLE sportive beauty, say, 
Must thy childish joys decay? 
Every thought where life is new, 
Is as fresh as morning dew ; 

Fancy on its buoyant wing, 

Seeks the breast of laughing Spring ; 

And the young heart takes delight 

In each«natural sound and sight. 

Might thy childhood almost past 

Blissful age ! forever last. 

Mingling Avith expanded sense 

Spotless truth and innocence ; 

Like the painted bow above, 

Full of promise, peace, and love ! 

Like a bark upon the sea, — 

Such is Childhood^s memory, 

Leaving on the infant mind 

Not a trace of grief behind ; 



Like a sky of summer blue. 

Such is childhood's onward view, 

All as vague and all as bright 

Beaming with unclouded light. 

Thy mind knows not an anxious doubc, 

It never heard of sin. 
^Tis heedless of the world without, 

Wrapt in its world within. 

With flaxen hair and bright blue eyes 
A sprightlier fairy never smiled. 

And I would some spell devise 
To keep my favorite still a child. 

I know that soon a riper grace 

Will rest upon thy maiden face; 
But then thou wilt not be 
The same fair child to me. 
That came on Avinged feet 
My well-known steps to greet. 

With flaxen hair and bright blue eyes 
A sprightlier fairy never smiled. 

And I would fain some spell devise 
To keep my fairy still a child. 

Lord Pokchester. 



-fV 



•Vh-s, 



93 



NOT HER little wave upon the sea of 
life; 
^ Another soul to save amid its toil and 
strife. 

Two more little feet to walk the dusty road ; 
To choose where two paths meet, the narrow and 
the broad. 

Two more little hands to work for good or ill ; 
Two more little eyes, another little will. 

Another heart to love, receiving love again ; 
And as the baby came, a thing of joy and 
pain. 



SAFE FOLDED 



%mt€ 2l®Mg<l. 




D 



H, it is bard when o'er 
the face 
We scarce can see for 
weeping 
The little loving baby 
face, 
That last, still shadow 
comes creeping; 
Full hard to close the tender eyes, 
And fold the hands for sleeping. 

Yet when the world our own would claim. 
It doth not greatly grieve us; 

We calmly see as days go by. 
Our little children leave us — 

And, smiling, heed not how the swift, 
Soft-footed years bereave us. 

Oh mother hearts I count you rich 
Beyond mere earth-possessing, 

Whose little babies never grow 
Away from your caressing — 

Safe-folded in His tender arms. 
Who gives again with blessing. 

CAROLINE LESLIE. 



CHILDREN'S HOUR. 

ETWEEN the dark and the day- 
light, 

When the night is beginning to lower. 
Comes a pause in the day's occupations, 
That is known as the Children's Hour. 

I hear in the chamber above me 

The patter of little feet, 
The sound of a door that is opened. 

And voices soft and sweet. 

From my study I see in the lamplight, 
Descending the broad hall stair^, 



Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, 
And Edith with golden hair. 

A whisper, and then a silence : 
Yet I know by their merry eyes 

They are plotting and planning together 
To take me by surprise. 

A sudden rush from the stairway, 
A sudden raid from the hall ! 

By three doors left unguarded 
They enter my castle wall ! 

They climb up into my turret 

O'er the arms -una back of my chair 

If I try to escape, they surround me ; 
They seem to be everywhere. 

They almost devour me with kisses. 
Their arms about me entwine, 

Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen 
In his Mouse-Tower on the Ehine .' 

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti. 
Because you have scaled the Avail, 

Such an old moustache as I am 
Is not a match for you all ? 

I have you fast in my fortress. 

And will not let you depart. 
But put you down into the dungeon. 

In the round-tower of my heart. 
And there will I keep you for ever, 

Yes, for ever and a day. 
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin. 

And moulder in dust away ! 

HENRY. WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW 



Introduction to ''Songs of IrfHocence.'^ 

^jIPING down the valleys wild, 
"^ Piping songs of pleasant glee, 
On a cloud I saw a child. 
And he laughing said to me : 

" Pipe a song about a lamb ! 

So I piped with merry cheer. 
"Piper, pipe that song again ;" 

So I piped ; he wept to hear. 



94 



INTRODUCTION TO ''SONGS OF INNOCENCEr 



'' Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe ; 

Sing thy songs of happy cheer I" 
So I .sang the same again, 

While he wept with joy to hear. 

** Piper, sit thee down and write 
In a book, that all may read." 

So he vanish'd from my sight ; 
And I pluck'd a hollow reed, 

And I made a rural pen, 

And I stain'd the water clear, 

And I wrote my happy songs 
Every child may joy to hear. 



WILLIAM BLAKE, 



iiMhp^ 



THE NEW COMER. 



Lancashire Dialect. 



^^ 



Igj^HA 'rt welcome, little bonny brid, 
SIS But should n't ha' come iust whi 



^|g But should n't ha' come just when 
tha did ; 

Toimes are bad. 
We 're short o' pobbies for eawr Joe, 
But that, of course, tha did n't know, 

Did ta, lad? 

Aw 've often yeard mi feyther tell 
'At when aw coom i' tli' world misel 

Trade wur slack ; 
An' neaw it 's hard wark pooin' throo — 
But aw munna fear thee, iv aw do 

Tha '11 go back. 

Cheer up ! these toimes '11 awtcr soon ; 
Aw 'm beawn to bcigh another spoon — 

One for thee ; 
An', as tha 's sich a pratty face. 
Aw '11 let thee have eawr Charley's place 

On mi knee. 

Hush ! hush ! tha munno cry this way, 
But get this sope o' cinder tay 

While it 's warm ; 
Mi mother used to give it me, 
Wlien aw wur sich a lad as thee, 

In her arm. 



Hush a babby, hush a bee — 
Oh, what a temper ! dear a me, 

Heaw tha skroikes ! 
Here 's a bit o' sugar, sithee ; 
Howd thi noise, an' then aw 'U gie thee 

Owt tha loikes. 

We 'n nobbut getten coarsish fare, 
But eawt o' this tha '11 ha' thi share, 

Never fear. 
Aw hope tha '11 never want a meal, 
But alius fill thi bally weel 

While tha 'rt here. 

And tho' we 'n childer two or three. 
We '11 make a bit o' reawm for thee — 

Bless thee, lad ! 
Tha 'rt th' jDrattiest brid we han i' th' nest; 
Come, hutch up closer to mi breast— 

Aw 'm thi dad. 



CBABl^E SONG. 

Qf LEEP little baby of mine, 
,^^ Night and the darkness are near 
Mr But Je^us looks down 
Through the shadows that frown, 
And baby has nothing to fear. 

Shut little sleepy blue eyes ; 

Dear little head be at rest ; 

Jesus like you. 

Was a baby once too, 

And slept on his own mother's breasL 

Sleep little baby of mine 

Soft on your pillow so white ; 

Jesus is here 

To watch over yon, dear. 

And nothing can harm you to-night. 

Oh little darling of mine. 

What can you know of the bliss, 

The comfort I keep. 

Awake and asleep. 

Because I am certain of this? 



95 



_!;4 



BED-TIME 



I. 

^HE children are going to bed 
5^ In nurseries shaded and clean, 
And many a bright and cnrly head 
Is nestling the white sheets between. 

Little faces all washed white as snow, 
Are dewy with kisses to-night, 

And young lips are murmuring low 
Sweet prayers — words from consciences 
white. 

Tiny dresses and jackets and shoes 
Lie folded away till the morn, 

Like the chrysahs, no more of use 
To the gayly-striped insect new-bom. 

The angel of sleep hovers near, 
And curtains the room with his wings ; 

That incense to angels is dear 
'WTiich from the nursery altars upsprings. 

Little eyelids quite tired with play, 
Are drooping and closing like flowers, 

And restless young forms laid away, 
To sleep through the long midnight 
hours. 

In cottage and castle and hall, 

In vaUey, on prairie, or hill, 
The calm hush of evening doth fall. 

And life hath grown suddenly still. 

At sunset a blessing comes down, 
And peace upon all things is shed. 

For in city and village and town 
The children are going to bed. 

XL 

The children are going to bed, 

Such bed as their lives ever know, 

In aUey and attic and shed, 
And cellar-ways fetid and low, 



In homes where wrangle and din 
Turn night into hideous noon, 

Where the voice of shame, sorrow, and sin 
Will break their light slumbers too soon. 

All tumbled and dirty they lie, 

No kiss on the heavy young brow, 
A tear scarcely dried in the eye. 

The flush of a blow ling'ring now. 
They sleep upon pavement or floor. 

With never a low word of prayer, 
Or gasp at the window or door 

For a breath of the hfe-giving air. 

Far up in the tenement high 

They sob at the falling of day, 
And angels bend down from the sky 

To hear what the poor children say. 
It may be that even in heaven 

Some bright tears of pity are shed, 
And sins of the day all forgiven 

When the children are going to bed. 

III. 

" The children are going to bed ! " 

Hushed voices speak gently the word : 
All muffled the mother's hght tread. 

No merry " Good-evening " is heard. 
No breath stirs the ringlets of gold, 

No dimple the passionless cheek, 
No tossing limbs ruffle a fold 

Laid over the hands folded meek. ' 

Oh ! quiet the cradle, though small, 

A\Tiere the children are laid to their rest: 
There is room and to spare for them aU, 

In Earth's warm and welcoming breast 
A\liat matter if castle or cot 

Once held the fair image of snow ? 
All alike are they now in their lot, 

As they nestle the flowers below. 
96 




COMKADLS. 



BED-TIME, 



Then cover them up from our sight, 

Spread the freshest green turf o'er their 
head, 
Bid them one more caressing "good- 
night," 

The children are going to bed. 
The children are folded in dreams, 

Bright angels have sung them to sleep, 
And stars with their great solemn beams, 

Loving watch o'er their tired forms keep. 

No waking to sorrow or gloom. 

No hunger, no shame, and no sin, 
Oh ! faithful and loving the tomb 

That safe from life's ills shuts them in. 
The sweet name of Jesus our Lord 

Once more o'er their pillows be said, 
And praise, that, secure in His Word, 

The children are going to bed. 

M . E . W I N S L O W . 



CHOOSING A NAME. 



ih- 



^^END down thy winged Angel, God ! 
I^P Amidst this night so wild, 
And bid him come where now we watch, 
And breathe upon our child. 

She lies upon her pillow, pale, 
And moans within her sleep, 

Or wakeneth with a patient smile, 
And striveth not to weep ! 

How gentle and how good a child 

She is, we know too well, 
And dearer to her parents' hearts 

Than our weak words can tell. 

We love — we watch throughout the night, 

To aid, when need may be ; 
We hope — and have despair'd at times, 

But now we turn to Thee. 

Send down thy sweet-souFd Angel, God! 

Amidst the darkness wild, 
And bid him soothe our souls to-night, 

And heal our gentle child ! 

BARRY CORNWALL. 



(HAVE got a new-born sister ; 
I was nigh the first that kissed her. 
When the nursing woman brought 
her 

To papa, his infant daughter. 
How papa's dear eyes did glisten ! — j 
She will shortly be to christen ; 
And papa has made the ofier, 
I shall have the naming of her. 

Now I wonder what would please her,— 

Charlotte, Julia, or Louisa ? 

Ann and Mary, they're too common ; 

Joan's too formal for a woman ; 

Jane's a prettier name beside ; 

But we had a Jane that died. 

They would say, if 't was Rebecca, 

That she was a little Quaker. 

Edith's pretty, but that looks 

Better in old English books ; 

Ellen's left off long ago ; 

Blanche is out of fashion now. 

None that I have named as yet 

Are so good as Margaret. 

Emily is neat and fine ; 

What do you think of Caroline ? 

How I'm puzzled and perplexed 

What to choose or think of next ! 

I am in a little fever 

Lest the name that I should give her 

Should disgrace her or defame her ; — 

I will leave papa to name her. 



-9{(- 



MARY LAMB. 



0N ^f^E PICTa^E OF ^]V l^¥JiW Pli^Y- 
IjVe JVIE^l^ n PRECIPICE. 



WHILE on the cliff with calm delight she 
kneels, 
And the blue vales a thousand joys recall, 
See, to the last, last verge her infant steals ! 

Oh fly— yet stir not, speak not, lest it fall- 
Far better taupjht, she lays her bosom bare, 
And the fond boy springs back to nestle there. 
LEON I DAS of Alexandria. (Greek.) 
Translation of s A M u E L Rogers. 



97 






^ - i ts 



To The Cuckoo. 




beauteous stranger of the grove, 

Thou messenger of Spring ! 
Now heaven repairs thy rural seat, 
And woods thy welcome sing. 

What time the daisy decks the green, 

Thy certain voice we hear ; 
Hast thou a star to guide thy way. 

Or mark the rolling year ? 

Delightful visitant ! with thee 

I hail the time of flowers, 
And hear the sound of music sweet 

From birds among the bowers. 

The school-boy, wandering through the wood 

To pull the primrose gay. 
Starts, the new voice of Spring to hear, 

And imitates thy lay. 

What time the pea puts on the bloom, 

Thou fliest thy vocal vale. 
An annual guest in other lands. 

Another Spring to hail. 

Sweet bird, thy bower is ever green, 

Thy sky is ever clear ; 
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song. 

No Winter in thy year ! 

Oh, could I fly, I'd fly with thee ! 

We'd make, with joyful wing. 
Our annual visit o'er the globe, 

Companions of the Spring ! 

JOHN LOGAN. 



g % >[^ p; 



■^^^ 



ri^^ 



98 



Sweet Baby, Sleep. 




|»WEET baby, sleep! what ails 
SI dear? 

\\'hat ails my darling, thus to cry ? 
Be still, my child, and lend thine ear, 

To hear me sing thy lullaby. 
My pretty lamb, forbear to weep ; 
Be still, my dear; sweet baby, sleep. 



my 



Thou blessed soul, what canst thou fear ? 

What thing to thee can mischief do ? 
Thy God is now thy Father dear, 

His holy Spouse thy mother too. 
Sweet baby, then forbear to weep ; 
Be still, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 

Though thy conception was in sin, 
A sacred bathing thou hast had ; 

And though thy birth unclean hath been, 
A blameless babe thou now art made. 

Sweet baby, then forbear to weep ; 

Be still, my dear ; sweet baby, sleep. 

While thus thy lullaby 1 sing. 

For thee great blessings ripening be ; 

Thine eldest brother is a King, 

And hath a kingdom bought for thee. 

Sweet baby, then, forbear to weep ; 

Be still, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 

Sweet baby, sleep, and nothing fear ; 

For whosoever thee offends 
By thy Protector threaten'd are, 

And God and angels are thy friends. 
Sweet baby, then forbear to weep ; 
Be still, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 

When God with us was dwelling here, 
In little< babes He took delight ; 

Such innocents as thou, my dear. 
Are ever precious in His sight. 

Sweet baby, then forbear to weep ; 

Be still, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 



A little infant once was He ; 

And strength in weakness then was laid 
Upon His virgin mother's knee, 

That power to thee might be convey'd. 
Sweet baby, then forbear to weep ; 
Be still, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 

In this thy frailty and thy need 

He friends and helpers doth prepare, 

Which thee shall cherish, clothe, and feed, 
For of thy weal they tender are. 

Sweet baby, then forbear to weep ; 

Be till, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 

The King of kings, when He was born, 
Had not so much for outward ease ; 

By Him such dressings were not worn, 
Nor such-like swaddling-clothes as these. 

Sweet baby, then forbear to weep ; 

Be still, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 

Within a manger lodged thy Lord, 
Where oxen lay and asses fed : 

Warm rooms we do to thee afford, 
An easy cradle or a bed. 

Sweet baby, then forbear to weep ; 

Be still, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 

The wants that He did then sustain 
Have purchased wealth my babe, for 
thee ; 

And by His torments and His pain 
Thy rest and ease secured be. 

My baby, then forbear to weep ; 

Be still, my babe ; sweet baby sleep. 

Thou hast, yet more to perfect this, 

A promise and an earnest got 
Of gaining everlasting bliss, 

Though thou, my babe, pcrceiv'st it not: 
Sweet baby, then forbear to weep ; . 

Be stiU, my babe ; sweet baby, sleep. 

GEORGE WITHER. 



99 



zM 



0M>^0 




"That Little Hat," 





FIND it in the garden path, 

Its little crown half full 
Of white flowers; where's the 
rogue 
Who dared my roses pull ? 
I find it on the roadside there, 

The flowers tossed away, 
And in the crown, packed carefully, 
A load of stones and clay. 

I find it in the daisied field, 

Or hidden in the clover, 
Inspected by the wandering bees, 

And crawled by insects over. 
I find it on the old barn floor, 

Or in the manger resting. 
Or swinging from the beams above, 

Where cooing doves are nesting. 

I find it ^neath my busy feet 

Upon the kitchen floor, 
Or lying midway up the stairs. 

Or by my chamber door. 
I find it in, I find it out, 

'Neath table, lounge, or chair. 
The little shabby brimless thing, 

I find it everywhere 

But on the curly, golden pate, 

For which alone 'twas meant, 
That little restless, sunny head. 

On mischief always bent. 
Oh ! baby boy, this problem solve, 

And tell me, darling, whether 
Your roguish pate and this old hat 

Were eve^ seen together ? 



'Y. 



% 



LITTLE roll of flannel fine; 

A thrill in mother's heart — "'tis 



mine 



A little head of golden hair ; 

A lifted eye to heaven in prayer. 



MARY p. BRIN 



A smile that ripples to a laugh; 
A tear with grief in its behalf; 
A pushing of a slender chair ; 
A climbing of the oaken stair; 

A stride o'er everything at hand; 
A horse at Santa Claus' command; 
A little cart all painted red; 
A train of cars at full steam sped ; 

A pair of " paiits" that reach the knee; 
A strut like midshipman from sea ; 
A pair of boots with tops of red; 
A knife, a ball, a. gallant sled; 

A pocket full of everything; 

A "shooter," skates, and yards of string; 

A voting fractions "such a bore;" 

A holiday rejoicing o'er; 

A stretching down the pantaloon ; 
A swim — a wrestling match at noon; 
A little Latin now, and Greek ; 
A letter home just once a week; 

A roaming through collegiate halls; 
A summer evening spent in calls ; 
A rapture o'er a sunny face ; 
A bow, a ring, some bridal lace; 

A kneeling at the chancel rail ; 
A trembling bride, a bridegroom pale • 
A leap into the world's wide sea; 
My boy was gone — ah me ! ah me ! 

FRANCES A. M. JOHN SO M. 



100 



-<^G) 



SJVGVo- 



^te^_^A If I Could Keep Her So. 

|UST a little baby lying in my arms, 

\yoiild that I could keep you with your baby charms; 
Helpless, clinging fingers ; downy, golden hair, 
"Where the sunshine lingers, caught from otherwhere; 
Blue eyes asking questions, lips that cannot speak, 
Roly-poly shoulders, dimple in your cheek ; 
Dainty little blossom, in a world of woe ; 
Thus I fain would keep you, for I love you so. 




Roguish little damsel, scarcely six years old ; 
Feet that never weary, hair of deeper gold ; 
Restless, busy fingers, all the time at play, 
Tongue that never ceases talking all the day, 
Blue eyes learning wonders of the world about. 
Have come to tell you them — what an eager shout ! 
Winsome little damsel, all the neighbors know ; 
Thus I long to keep you, for I love you so. 

Sober little school-girl with your strap of books, 
And such grave importance in your puzzled looks, 
Solving weary problems, poring over sums, 
Yet with tooth for sponge cake and for sugar plums, 
Reading books of romance in your bed at night, 
Waking up to study in the morning light ; 
Anxious as to ribbons, deft to tie a bow, 
Full of contradictions — I would keep you so. 





Sweet and thoughtful maiden, sitting by my side. 
All the world's before, and the world is wide ; 
Hearts are there for winning, hearts are there to break, 
Has your own, shy maiden, just begun to-wake? 
Is that rose of dawning, glowing on your cheek. 
Telling us in blushes what you will not speak ? 
Shy and tender maiden, I would fain forego 
All the golden future, just to keep you so. 

All the listening angels saw that she was fair. 
Ripe for rare unfolding in the upper air; 
Now the rose of dawning turns to lily white, 
And the close-shut eyelids veil the eyes from siglit. 
All the past I summon as I kiss her brow — 
Babe, and child, and maiden, all are with me now, 
O ! my heart is breaking ; but God's love I know — 
Safe among the angels. He will keep her so. 



LOUISE C. MOULTON. 



A 



101 



WILLIE WINKIE. 



|i#i^ ^fi^liie. 



WEE Willie Winkie rins through the 
town, 
Up stairs and doon stairs, in his nicht goT\Ti, 
Tirlin' at the window, cr}in' at the lock, 
"Are the weans in their bed?— for it's now ten 
o'clock." 

Hey, Willie Winkie ! are ye comin' ben ? 
The cat's singin' gay thi'ums to the sleepin' 

hen. 
The doug's speldered on the floor, and disna 

giea cheep; 
But here's a waukrife laddie that winna fa' 

asleep. 

Onything but sleep, ye rogue !— glowerin' like 

the moon, 
Rattlin' iu an airn jug with an airn spoon, 
RumbHn', tumblin' roun' about, cramn like 

a cock, 
Skirlin' like a kenna-what— wauknin' sleepin' 

folk. 

Hey, Willie Winkie ! the wean's in a creel ! 
Waumblin' aff a bodie's knee like a vera eel, 
Euggin' at the cat's lug, and ravellin' a' her 

thrums e ; 
Hey, Wittie Winkie!— See, there he comes! 

Weary is the mither that has a storie wean, 
A wee stumpie stoussie, that canna rin his 

lane. 
That has a battle aye m' sleep before he'll 

close an ee; 
But a kiss fi^ae aff his rosy lips gies strength 

anew to me. 

WILLIAM MILLER, 



N 



THE BABIE. 
^ 

AE shoon to hide her tiny taes, 
Nae stockin' on her feet ; 

Her supple ankles white as snaw, 
Or early blossoms sweet. 



Her simple dress o' sprinkled pink, 
Her double, dimplit chin. 

Her puckered lips and balmy mou' 
With nae an tooth within. 



Her een sae like her mother's een, 

Twa gentle, liquid things ; 
Her face is like an angel's face: 

We're glad she has nae wrings. 

She is the buddin' o' our love, 

A giftie God gied us : 
We maun na have the gift owre wee., 

'Twad be na blessin' thus. 

We still maun lo'e the Giver mair, 

An' see Him in the given ; 
An' sae she'll lead us up to Him, 

Our babie straight frae heaven. 

J. E. RANKIN, 

J^ S^ZIZ^ 





102 



E always frank and open with 
your children. Make them 
trust you and tell you all their 
secrets. Make them feel at ease with you, 
and make free wdth them. There is no 
such good plaything for grown-up chil- 
dren like you and me as weans, wee ones. 
It is wonderful what you can get them to 
do with a little coaxing and fun. You 
all know this as well as I do, and you 
will practice it every day in your own 
families. There is a pleasant little story 
out of an old book :—'^ A gentleman 
having led a company of children beyond 
their usual journey, they began to be 
weary, and all cried to him to carry them 
on his back, but because of their multi- 
tude he could not do that. 'But/ says 
he, ' I'll get horses for us all / then cut- 
ting little Avands out of the hedges as 
ponies, and a great stake as a charger Icr 
himself, this put mettle into then' little 
legs, and they rode cheerily home.'' So 
much for a bit of ingenious fun. 

DR. BROWN. 




DEATH OF A BABE. 

She had seen 
All of earth's year except the winter's snows. 
Spring, summer, autumn, like sweet dreams, had smiled 
On her. Eva — or living — was her name ; 
A bud of life folded in leaves and love ; 
The dewy morning star of summer days; 
The golden lamps of happy fire-side hours ; 
The little ewe-lamb nestling by our side ; 
The dove whose cooing echoed in our hearts ; 
The sweetest chord upon our harp of praise : 
The quiet spring the rivulet of joy; 
The pearl among His gifts who gave us all ; 
On whom not we alone, but all who looked, 
Gazing would breath the involuntary words, 
"God bless thee, Eva — God be bless'd for thee/' 
Alas, clouds gather'd quickly, and the storm 
Fell without warning on our tender bud, 
Scattering its leaflets ; and the star was drench'd 
In tears; the lamp burnt dimly unawares 
The little lamb was faint ; the weary dove 
Cower'd its young head beneath its droopirfg wing; 
The chord was loosen'd on our harp ; the fount 
Was troubled, and the rill ran nearly dry ; 
And in our souls we heard our Father saying, 
"Will ye return the gift?'' The Voice was low— 
The answer lower still — " Thy will be done." 
And now where we had often pictured her, 
I saw her one of the beatified ; 
Eva, our blossom, ours forever now, 
Unfolding in the atmosphere of love: 
The star that set upon our earthly home 
Had risen in glory, and in purer skies 
Was shining ; and the lamp we sorely miss'd, 
Shed its soft radiance in a better home ; 
Our lamb was pasturing in heavenly meads ; 
Our dove had settled on the trees of life ; 
Another chord was ringing with delight, 
Another spring of rapture was unseal'd, 
In Paradise ; our treasure was with God ; 
The gift in the great Giver's strong right hand ; 
And none who look'd on her could choose but say, 
" Eva, sweet angel, God be bless'd for thee." 



* 



II. I3ICKERSTETH 



103 




PRAYERS OF CHILDREN: 




'N the quiet nursery chambers, — 
Snowy pillows yet unpressed, — 
See the forms of little children 
Kneeling, white-robed, for their rest. 
All in quiet nursery chambers, 

While the dusky shadows creep, 
Hear the voices of the children ; 
" Now I lay me down to sleep." 

In the meadow^ and the mountain 

Calmly shine the Winter stars, 
But across the glistening lowlands 

Stand the moonlight's silver bars. 
In the silence and the darkness, 

Darkness gro^^ng still more deep, 
Listen to the little children, 

Prajdng God their souls to keep. 

" If we die " — so pray the children, 

And the mother's head droops low, 
One from out her fold is sleeping 

Deep beneath the winter's snow — 
"Take our souls ; " — and past the casement 

Flits a gleam of crystal light. 
Like the trailing of his garments. 

Walking evermore in white. 

Little souls that stand expectant. 

Listening at the gates of Hfe, 
Hearing, far away, the murmur 

Of the tumult and the strife. 
We who fight beneath those banners, 

Meeting ranks of foemen there, 
Find a deeper, broader meaning 

In your simple vesper prayer. 

When your hand shall grasp this standard 
Which to-day you watch from far, 

When your deeds shall shape the conflict 
In this universal war : 

Pray to Him, the God of battles, 
Whose strong eyes can never sleep. 



In the warring of temptation, 
Firm and true your souls to keep. 

When the combat ends, and slowly 

Clears the smoke from out the skies 
When, far down the purple distance. 

All the noise of battle dies ; 
When the last night's solemn shadow 

Settles down on you and me. 
May the love that never faileth 

Take our souls eternally ! 



-•^ 



^I CHILD'S MOOD.^ 



-^^ 



♦^>- 



I WANT that rose the wind took yesterday, 
I want it more than this : 
It had no thorn — it was the best that grew, 
I want my last night's kiss. 

I want that butterfly with spotted wings 

That brushed across my hand, 
Last night, between the sunset and the dew, 

It came from fairy-land. 

It would have stayed, I guess, it wavered so. 

Where all those pansies bloom : 
They ga\e it wings to get away from me, 

I lost it in the gloom. 

And yesterday the bees on all the heads 

Of clover s^oing so low, 
I saw them take their honey; but to-day 

They only sting and go. 

That star that always comes before the moon. 

Dropped out of heaven last night ; 
I hunted where I saw it fall — and found 

A worm with yellow light. 

I want the sun to go, and let the dark 

Hide everything away. 
That was the sweetest rose in all the world 

The wind took yesterday. 

JULIET C. MARSH. 



104 




TWO YMAM8 OLB. 





LAYING on the carpet 
near me 
Is a little cherub girl ; 
And her presence, much 
I fear me, 
Sets my senses in a 
whirl ; 
For a book is near me 

lying, 
Full of grave philosophizing, 
And I own I'm vainly trying 

There my thoughts to hold; 
But in spite of my essaying, 
They will evermore be straying, 
To that cherub near me playing 

Only two years old. 

With her hair so long and flaxen, 

And her sunny eyes of blue, 
And her cheek so plump and waxen, 

She is charming to the view. 
Then her voice, to all who hear it. 
Breathes a sweet entrancing spirit. 
Oh, to be forever near it, 

Is a joy untold ; 
For 'tis ever sweetly telling 
To my heart, with rapture swelling. 
Of affection inly dwelling — 

Only two years old. 

With a new delight I'm hearing, 

All her sweet attempts at words 
In their melody endearing, 

Sweeter far than any birds ; 
And the musical mistaking 
Which her baby lips are making. 
For my heart a charm is waking 

Firmer in its hold 
Than the charm so rich and glowing, 
From the Roman's lip o'erflowing; 
Then she gives a look so knowing, 

Only two years old. 

Now her ripe and honeyed kisses, 

(Honeyed, ripe, for me alone,) 

Thrill my soul with varied blisses 



Venus never yet hath known. 
When her twining arms are round me. 
All domestic joy iiath crowned me, 
And a fervent spell hath bound me, 

Never to grow old. 
0, there's not, this side of Aiden, 
Aught with loveliness so laden. 
As my little cherub maiden 

Only two years old. 



105 



WJ BIRD, 

|RE last year's moon had left the sky, 
I A birdling sought my Indian nest, ' 
^^^ And folded, O, so lovingly I 
2? Her tiny wings upon my breast. 

From morn till evening's purple tinge, 
In winsome helplessness she lies ; 
Two rose leaves with a silken fringe, 
Shut softly on her starry eyes. 

There's not in Ind a lovelier bird, 
Broad earth owns not a happier nest ; 

O God, thou hast a fountain stirred, 
Whose waters never more shall rest. 

This beautiful mysterious thing, 
This seeming visitant from heaven, 

This bird with the immortal wing. 
Come to me, thy hand has given. 

The pulse first caught its tiny stroke. 
The blood its crimson hue from mine ; 

This life, which I have dared invoke 
Henceforth is parallel with thine. 

A silent awe is in my room, 

I tremble with delicious fear; 
The future, with its light and gloom, 

Time and Eternity are here. 

Doubts, liopes, in eager tumult rise, 
Hear, O, my God I one earnest prayer; 

Room for my bird in Paradise, 

And give her angel plumage thoref 

Emily Judson f Fanny Forrester) 



■-^AGu 



--P)\5V^ 




TAe Crjr of the Children. 



y 



Do ye hear the children weeping, my 
brothers, 
Ere the sorrow comes with years ? 
They are leaning their young heads against 
their mothers, 
And that cannot stop their tears. 
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, 
The young birds are chirping in the 
nest, 
The young fawns are playing with the shad- 
ows, 
The young flowers are blowing toward the 
west — 
But the young, young children, my brothers, 

They are weeping bitterly ! 
They are weeping in the playtime of the others, 
In the country of the free. 

Do you question the young children in their 
sorrow 
Why their tears are falling so ? 
The old man may weep for his to-morrow 

Which is lost in Long Ago ; 
The old tree is leafless in the forest, 

The old year is ending in the frost, 
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest, 

The old hope is hardest to be lost : 
But the young, young, children, O my brothers, 

Do you ask them why they stand 
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their 
mothers, 
In our happy Fatherland? 

They look up with their pale and sunken 
faces. 
And their looks are sad to see. 
For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses 

Do^Ti the cheeks of infancy ; 
" Your old earth," they say, ''is very dreary, 
Our young feet," they say, " are very weak; 
Few paces have we taken, yet are weary — 

Our grave-rest is very far to seek : 
Ask the aged why they weep, and not the 
children, 
For the outside earth is cold, 
And we young ones stand without, in our 
bewildering. 
And the graves are for the old. 



"True," say the children, "it may happen 

That we die before our time : 
Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen 

Like a snowball, in the rime. 
We looked into the pit prepared to take her : 
Was no room for any work in the close clay ! 
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will 
wake her. 
Crying, ' Get up httle Alice! it is day.' 
If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower, 
With your ear down, little Alice never cries ; 
Could we see her face, be sure we should not 
know her, 
For the smile has time for growing in her 
eyes ; 
And merry go her moments, luU'd and still'd 
in 
Tlie shroud by the kirk-chime. 
It is good when it happens," say the children, 
" That we die before our time." 

Alas, alas, the children ! they are seeking 

Death in life, as best to have : 
They are binding up their hearts away from 
breaking. 
With a cerement fi'om the grave. 
Go out, children, from the mine and from the 
city, 
Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do ; 
Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips 
pretty, 
Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them 
through ! 
But they answer, " Are your cowslips of the 

meadows 
Like our weeds a-near the mine ? 
Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shad- 
ows, 
From your pleasures fair and fine ! 

"For, oh," say the children, "we are weary, 

And we cannot run or leap ; 
If we cared for any meadows, it were merely 

To drop down in them and sleep. 
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping, 

We fall upon our faces, trying to go ; 
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, 
The reddest flower would look as pale as 



106 



THE CRY OF THE CHHDREN. 



For all day we drag our burden tiring 
Through the coal-dark, underground ; 

Or all day we drive the wheels of iron 
In the factories, round and round. 

" For all day the wheels are droning, turning ; 

Their wind comes in our faces, 
Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses 
burning. 
And the walls turn in their places ; 
Turns the sky in the high window blank and 
reeling, 
Turns the long light that drops adown the 
wall, 
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceil- 
ing, 
All are turning, all the day, and we wdth all. 
And all day the iron wheels are droning, 

And sometimes we could pray, 
' O ye wheels ' (l)reaking out in a mad moan- 
ing) 
' Stop ! be silent for to-day ! ' " 

Ay, be silent! Let them hear each other 
breathing 
For a moment, mouth to mouth ! 
Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh 
wreathing 
Of their tender human youth ! 
Let them feel that this cold metallic motion 
Is not all the life God fashions or reveals ; 
Let them prove their living souls against the 
notion 
That they live in you, or under you, 
wheels ! 
Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward. 

Grinding life down from its n^ark ; 
And the children's souls, which God is calling 
sunward. 
Spin on blindly in the dark. 

Now tell the poor young children, my 
brothers. 
To look up to Him and pray ; 
So the blessed One who blesseth all the others, 

Will bless them another day. 
Tliey answer, " Who is God, that He should 
hear us, 
While the rushing of the iron wheels is 
stirr'd ? 
When we sob aloud, the human creatures 
near us 
Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word. 
And we hear not (for the wheels in their re- 
sounding) 



Strangers speaking at the door : 
Is it likely God, with angels singing round 
Him, 
Hears our weeping any more ? 

" Two words, indeed, of praying we remember. 

And at midnight's hour of harm, 
'Our Father,' looking upward in the cham])er 

We say softly for a charm. 
We know no other words except 'Our Father,' 
And we think that, in some pause of angels' 
song, 
God may pluck them with the silence sweet to 

gather. 
And hold both within His right hand which 

is strong. 
'Our Father!' If He heard us He would 
surely 
(For they call Him good and mild) 
Answer, smiling down the steep world very 
purely, 
' Come and rest with me, my child.' 
" But no ! " say the children, weeping faster, 

" He is speechless as a stone : 
And they tell us of His image is the master. 

Who commands us to work on. 
Go to ! " say the children, — " up in heaven. 
Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we 
find. 
Do not mock us; grief has made us unbe- 
lieving : 
We look up for God, but tears have made 
us blind." 
Do you hear the children weeping and dis- 
proving, 
O my brothers, what ye preach ? 
For God's possible is taught by His world's 
loving, 
And the children doubt of each. 

And well may the children weep before you! 

They are weary ere they run ; 
They have never seen the sunshine, nor the 
glory 
Which is brighter than the sun. 
They know the grief of nv.ui, without ita 
wisdom ; 
They sink in man's despair, without its calm; 
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom, 
Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm : 
Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly 

The harvest of its memories cannot reap, — 
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly. 
Let them weep ! let them weep ! 



107 



THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN, 



They look up with their pale and sunken 
faces, 
And their look is dread to see, 
For they 'mind you of their angels in high 
places, 
With eyes turned on Deity. 
** How long," they say, " how long, cruel 
nation. 
Will you stand, to nio\e the world, on a 
child's heart, — 
Stifle down T\ith a mailed heel its palpitation, 
And tread onward to your throne amid the 
mart ? 
Our blood splashes upward, gold-heaper, 

And your purple shows your path ! 
But the child's sob in the silence curses 
deeper 
Than the strong man in his wrath." 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 



TI E LITTLE CilYALIER. ^ 

HE walks beside his mother, 
And looks up in her face ; 
He wears a glow of boyish pride 

With such a royal grace ! 
He proudly waits upon her; 

Would shield her without fear — 
The boy who loves his mother well, 
Her little cavalier. 

To see no tears of sorrow 

Upon her loving cheek, 
To gain her sweet, approving smile, 

To hear her softly speak — 
Ah ! what in all this wide world 

Could be to him so dear ? — 
The boy who loves his mother well, 

Her little cavalier. 

Look for him in the future 

Among the good, the true : 
All blessings on the upw^ard way 

His little feet pursue. 
Of robed and crowned and sceptered kings 

He stands the royal peer — 
The boy ^vho loves his mother well, 

Her little cavalier. 



COUNTRY 



CHILDREN, 




(ljrtniii'i:=?>^ 



GEORGE COOPER 



lZD* ' ^()(i^ ■' dl 

^ITTLE fresh violets. 

Born in the wild wood? 
Sweetly illustrating 
Innocent childhood : 
Shy as the antelope, 
Brown as a berry. 
Free as the mountain air, 
Eomping and merry. 

Blue eyes and hazel eyes 

Peep from the hedges, 
Shaded by sun-bonnets, 

Frayed at the edges ! 
Up in the apple trees. 

Careless of danger. 
Manhood in embryo, 

Stares at the stranger. 

Out in the hilly patch. 

Seeking the berries — 
Under the orchard trees, 

Feasting on cherries — ■ 
Trampling the clover blooms, 

Down ^mong the grasses, 
No voice to hinder them. 

Dear lads and lasses I 

No grim propriety — 

No interdiction ; 
Free as the bixdlings 

From city restriction ! 
Coining the purest blood, 

Strengthening each muscle. 
Donning health armor 

^Gainst life's coming bustle. 

Dear little innocents ! 

Born in the wildwood ; 
Oh, that all little ones 

Had such a childhood ! 
Blue skies spread over them. 

Earth's green beneath them, 
No sweeter heritage 

Could we bequeath them. 



108 




•5-6alllng a Boy in the Morning.-s- 




HE Connecticut editor 
who wrote the follow- 
ing, evidently knew 
what he was talking 
about : — 

Calling a boy up in 
the morning can hard- 
ly be classed under the 
head of " pastimes/' especially if the boy 
is fond of exercise the day before. And 
it is a little singular that the next hardest 
thing to getting a boy out of bed is get- 
ting him into it. There is rarely a mother 
who is a success at rousing a boy. All 
mothers know this ; so do their boys. And 
yet the mother seems to go at it in the 
right way. She opens the stair-door and 
insinuatingly observes, "Johnny." There 
is no response. " Johnny.^' Still no re- 
sponse. Then there is a short, sharp, 
"John," followed a moment later by a 
long and emphatic "John Henry." A 
grunt from the upper regions signifies that 
an impression has been made ; and the 
mother is encouraged to add, "You'd bet- 
ter be getting down here to your breakfast, 
young man, before I come up there, an' 
give you something you'll feel." This so 
startles the young man that he immedi- 
ately goes to sleep again. And the ope- 
ration has to be repeated several times. A 
father knows nothing about this trouble. 
He merely opens his mouth as a soda- 
bottle ejects its cork, and the *^John 
Henry" that cleaves the air of that stair- 
way goes into that boy Itke electricity, and 
pierces the deepest recesses of his nature. 
And he pops out of that bed and into 
his clothes, and down the stairs, with a 




promptness that is commendable. It is 
rarely a boy allows himself to disregard 
the paternal summons. About once a 
year is believed to be as often as is con- 
sistent with the rules of health. He saves 
his father a great many steps by his 
thoughtfulness. 



H^+Good-JIight. 



•f£ 



%^ 



^OOD-NIGHT! the sun is setting, 
^^ " Good-night !" the robins sing. 
And blue-eyed dolls aud blue-eyed girls 

Should soon be following. 
Come ! lay the Lady Geraldine 

Among the pillows white ; 
'T is time the little mother kissed 

Her sleepy doll good-night. 

And, Willie, put the cart away, 

And drive into the shed 
The pony and the mooly cow ; 

'T is time to go to bed. 
For, listen ! in the lilac tree 

The robin does not sing ; 
" Good-night !" he sang, and tucked his 
head 

Beneath his weary wing. 

Soon all the world will go to rest, 

And all the sky grow dim ; 
God " giveth his beloved sleep," 

So we may trust in Him. 
The Lord is in the shadow, 

And the Lord is in the light, 
To guard His little ones from harm ; 

Good-night, dear hearts, good-night I 



101) 



-^^^=^: 



b*s^- 



^DESTH+OFCITTLE+PIULh 



j(c**** :,;********* ;>:»:»:»»»»:♦: ************* 




LOy said Paul, "what 
is that?'' "Where, dear- 
est?'' "There! at the 
bottom of the bed." 
'^ There's nothing there 
except Papa ! " The fig- 
ure lifted up its head and 
rose, and, coming to the 
bedside, said, "My own 
boy, don't you know me ? " Paul looked 
it in the face, and thought, "Was this his 
father? Bat the face, so altered to his 
thinking, thrilled while he gazed, as if it 
were in pa'ti ; and, before he could reach 
out both his hands to take it between 
them and draw it toward him, the figure 
turned away quickly from the little bed, 
and went out at the door. Paul looked 
at Florence with a fluttering heart ; but 
he knew what she was going to say, and 
stopped her with his face against her lips. 
The next time he observed the figure sit- 
ting at the bottom of the bed, he called to 
it, " Don't be sorry for me, dear papa ; 
indeed, I ani quite happy !" His father 
coming, and bending down to liim — which 
he did quickly, and without first pausing 
by the bedside — Paul held him round the 
neck, and repeated these words to him 
several times, and very earnestly ; and 
Paul never saw him again in his room at 
any time, whether it were day or night, 
but he called out, " Don't be sorry for 
me; indeed, I am quite happy." This 
was the beginning of his always saying in 
the morning that he was a groat deal 
better, and that they were to tell his fa- 
ther so. 



IIow many times the golden water dan- 
ced upon the wall — how many nights the 
dark, dark river rolled toward the sea in 
spite of him — Paul never counted, never 
sought to know. If their kindness, or his 
sense of it, could have increased, they were 
more kind, and he more grateful, every- 
day; but whether they were many days 
or few, appeared of little moment now to 
the gentle boy. One night he had been 
thinking of his mother and her picture 
in the drawing-room down stairs, and had 
thought she must have loved sweet Flor- 
ence better than his father did, to have 
held her in her arms when she felt that 
she was dying ; for even he, her brother, 
who had such dear love for her, could 
have no greater wish than that. The 
train of thought suggested to him to in- 
quire if he had ever seen his mother; for 
he could not remember whether they had 
told him yes or no — the river running 
very fast, and confusing his mind. "Floy, 
did I ever see mamma ?" " No, darling : 
why ?" " Did I ever see any kind face, 
like mamma's, looking at me when I was 
a baby, Floy ?" he asked, increduously, 
as if he had some vision of a face before 
him. " Oh, yes, dear." " Whose, Floy?" 
" Your old nurse's, often." *^And where is 
my old nurse ?" said Paul. '^ Is she dead, 
too? Floy, are we all dead, except 
you?" / 

There was a hurry in the room for an 
instant — longer, perhaps, but it seemed 
no more — then all was still again; and 
Florence, with her face quite colorless, 
but smiling, held his head upon her arm. 



110 



DEATH OF LITTLE PAUL, 



Her arm trembled very much. " Show 
me that old nurse, Floy, if you please !'^ 
" She is not here, darling. She shall come 

to-morrow.^' ^' Thank you, Floy." 

* * ****** 

''And who is this?" Is this my old 
nurse ?" said the child, regarding with a 
radiant smile a figure coming ia. Yes, 
yes ! No other stranger would have shed 
those tears at sight of him, and called 
him her dear boy, her pretty boy, her own 
poor blighted child. No other woman 
would have stooped down by his bed, and 
taken up his wasted hand and put it to 
her lips and breast, as one who had some 
right to fondle it. No other woman 
would have so forgotten everybody there 
but him and Floy, and been so full of 
tenderness and pity. "Floy, this is a 
kind, good face !'' said Paul. " I am glad 
to see it again. Don't go away old nurse. 
Stay here !'' 

" Now lay me down," he said ; " and, 
Floy, come close to me and let me see 
you!" Sister and brother wound their 
arms around each other, and the golden 
light came streaming in and fell upon 
them, locked together. "How fast the 
river runs between its green banks and 
the rushes, Floy ! But it's very near the 
sea. I hear the waves ! They always 
said so." Presently he told her that the 
motion of the boat upon the stream was 
lulling him to rest. How green the banks 
were now ! how bright the flowers grow- 
ing on them ! and how tall the rushes ! Now 
the boat was out at sea, but gliding 
smoothly on ; and now there was a shore 
before them. Who stood on the bank ? 
He put his hands together, as he had been 
used to do at his prayers. He did not 
remove his arms to do it , but they saw 
him fold them so, behind her neck. 
"Mamma is like you, Floy ; I know her 
by the face ! But tell them that the print 



upon the stairs at school is not divine 
enough. The light about the head is 
shining on me as I go !" 

The golden ripple on the wall came 
back again, and nothing else stirred in the 
room. The old, old fashion ! The fashion 
that came in with our first garments, and 
w^ill last unchanged until our race has 
run its course, and the wide firmament 
is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old 
fashion — Death ! Oh, thank God, all 
Avho see it, for that older fashion yet, of 
Immortality ! And look upon us, angels 
of young children, with regards not quite 
estranged when the swift river bears us 
to the ocean ! 

CHARLES DICKENS. 



SLUMBER SONG. 

^USHABYE, baby ! 
1^^ How the hours run ! 
Now the night is coming. 

Soon the day'll be done. 
The door of the dreamland is ajar ; 
Haste thee in, it is not far. 
Bye, baby, bye ! 

Hushabye, baby ! 

Now the day is done. 
See, the shadows gather 

And the light is gone. 
The door of dreamland open stands, 

You must haste away : 
The little stars have set their lamps, 

To guide you in your way. 
Bye, baby, bye ! 

Hushabye, baby ! 

Close your little eyes, 
Sleep is standing o'er thee, 

Waiting for her prize. 
She has sweetest dreams to give thee. 
Softest arms which will enfold thee. 
She will keep thee from all harm . 
Yield thee quickly to her charm. 

Bye, baby, bye ! 

ELLA BRANCH. 



HI 




TO FERDINAND SEYMOUR, 




t OSY child, with 
forehead fair, 
Coral lip, and shi- 
ning hair, 
In whose mirthful, 

clever eyes 
Such a world of 

gladness lies ; 
As thy loose curls 
idly straying 

O'er thy mother's cheek, while playing, 

Blend her soft lock's shadowy twine 

With the glittering light of thine — 

Who shall say, who gazes now, 

Which is fairest, she or thou ? 

In sweet contrast are ye met. 

Such as heart could ne'er forget ; 

Thou art brilliant as a flower, 

Crimsoning in the sunny hour; 

Merry as a singing bird. 

In the green wood Sweetly heard ; 

Restless as if fluttering wings 

Bore thee on thy wanderings ; 

Ignorant of all distress, 

Full of childhood's carelessness. 

She is gentle ; she hath known 

Something of the echoed tone 

Sorrow leaves, where'er it goes, 

In this world of many woes. 

On her brow such shadows are 

As the faint cloud gives the star, 

Veiling its most holy light. 

Though it still be pure aod bright; 

And the color in her cheek 

To the hue on thine is weak. 

Save when flushed with sweet surprise, 

Sudden welcomes light her eyes ; 

And her softly chiselled face 

(But for living, moving grace) 

Looks like one of those which beam 

In th' Italian painter's dream, — 

Some beloved Madonna, bending 

O'er the infant she is tending : 

Holy, bright, and undefiled 

Mother of the Heaven-born child ; 

Who, though painted strangely fair. 

Seems but made for holy prayer. 

Pity, tears, and sweet appeal, 

And fondness such as angels feel : 

1 



Baffling earthly passion's sigh 
With serenest majesty! 

Oh ! may those enshrouded years 
Whose fair dawn alone appears, — 
May that brightly budding life. 
Knowing yet nor sin nor strife, — 
Bring its store of hoped-for joy, 
Mother, to thy laughing boy ! 
And the good thou dost impart 
Lie deep-treasured in his heart, 
That, when he at length shall strive 
In the bad world where we live. 
Thy sweet name may still be blest. 
As one who taught his soul true rest ! 

Caeoline NoEToir. 



TO H. C. 



TWO YEAES OLD. 



OTHOU whose fancies from afar are brought; 
Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel, 
And fittest to unutterable thought 

The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol* 
Thou fairy voyager ! that dost float 
In such clear water, that thy boat 
May rather seem 

To brood on air than on an earthly stream — 
Suspended in a stream as clear as sky, 
Where earth and heaven do make one imagery ; 

blessed vision !* happy child ! 
Thou art so exquisitely wild, 

1 think of thee with many fears 

For what may be thy lot in future years. 

I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest, 

' Lord of thy house and hospitality ; 
And Grief, uneasy lover, never rest 

But when she sat within the touch of thee. 
too industrious folly ! 
O vain and causeless melancholy ! 
Nature will either end thee quite ; 
Or, lengthening out thy season of delight. 
Preserve for thee, by individual right, 
A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks. 
What hast thou to do with sorrow, 
Or the injuries of to-morrow ? 
Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth, 
111 fitted to sustain unkindly shocks. 
Or to be trailed along the soiling earth ; 
A gem that glitters while it lives. 
And no forewarning gives, 
But, at the touch of wrongs, without a strife, 
Slips in a moment out of life. Wm. Woedsworth, 
12 



^^^^ 





>HEN first thou earnest, 
gentle, shy and fond, 
My eldest born, first hope, 
and dearest treasure. 
My heart received thee with a joy beyond 
All that it yet had felt of earthly 
pleasure ; 
Nor thought that any love again might be 
So deep and strong as that I felt for thee. 

Faithful and true, with sense beyond thy 
years. 
And natural piety that leaned to heaven; 
Wrung by a harsh word suddenly to tears. 
Yet patient to rebuke when justly given; 
Obedient — easy to be reconciled — 
And meekly cheerful ; such wert thou, my 
child ! 

Not willing to be left — still by my side, 
Haunting my walks, while summer day 
was dying ; 
Nor leaving in thy turn, but pleased to glide 
Through the dark room where I was 
sadly lying ; 
Or by the couch of pain, a sitter meek. 
Watch the dim eye, and kiss the fevered 
cheek. 

O boy ! of such as thou are oftenest made 
Earth's fragile idols ; like a tender flower. 

No strength in all thy freshness, prone to 
fade, 
And bending weakly to the thunder- 
shower ; 

Still, round the loved, thy heart found 
force to bind, 

And clung, like woodbine shaken in the 
wind ! 

^ ii; 



Then thou, my merry love— bold in thy 

glee. 
Under the bough, or by the firelight 

dancing, 
With thy sweet temper, and thy spirit free, 
Didst come, as restless as a bird^s wing 

glancing, 
Full of a wild and irrepressible mirth, 
Like a young sunbeam to the gladdened 

earth ! 

Thine was the shout, the song, the burst 

^ of joy, 
Which sweet from childhood's rosy lip 

resoundeth ; 
Thine was the eager spirit naught could 

cloy, 
And the glad heart from which all grief 

reboundeth ; 
And many a mirthful jest and mock reply 
Lurked in the laughter of thy dark-blue 

eye. 

And thine was many an art to win and bless, 
The cold and stern to joy and fondness 
warming ; 
The coaxing smile, the frequent soft caress, 
The earnest, tearful prayer all wrath 
disarming ! 
Again my heart a new affection found, 
But thought that love with thee had 
reached its bound. 

At length THOU camest — thou, the last 
and least, 
Nick-named " the Emperor '' by thy 
laughing brother^ — 



THE MOTHER'S HEART. 



Because a haughty spirit swelled thy breast, 
And thou didst seek to rule and sway 
the others — 
Mingling with every playful infant wile 
A mimic majesty that made us smile. 

And oh ! most like a regal child wert thou ! 
An eye of resolute and successful 

scheming ! 
Fair shoulders, curling lips and dauntless 

brow — 
Fit for the world's strife, not for poet's 

dreaming ; 
And proud the lifting of thy stately head 
And the firm bearing of thy. conscious, 

tread. 

Different from both ! yet each succeeding 
claim 
I, that all other love had been for- 
swearing, 
Forthwith admitted, equal and the same ; 
Nor injured either by this love's com- 
paring 
Nor stole a fraction for the newer call — 
But in the mother's heart found room for 



TO GEORGE. 



all! 



CAROLINE NORTON. 



-fV 



►*— -^H- 



— ^ — 

CHILDREN are what the mothers are. 
No fondest father's fondest care 
Can fashion so the infant heart 
As those creative beams that dart, 
With all their hopes and fears, upon 
The cradle of a sleeping son. 

His startled eyes with wonder see 
A father near him on his knee, 
Who wdshes all the while to trace 
The mother in his future face ; 
But 't is to her alone uprise 
His wakening arms ; to her those eyes 
Open with joy, and not surprise. 

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 



YES, I do love thee well, my child ! 
Albeit mine's a wandering miad 
But never, darling, hast thou smiled 
Or breathed a wish that did not find 
A ready echo in my heart. 
What hours I've held thee on my knee. 
Thy little rosy lips apart ! 
*Or, when asleep, I've gazed on thee 
And with old tunes sung thee to rest, 
Hugging thee closely to my bosom ; 
For thee my very heart hath blest, 
My joy, my care, my blue-eyed blossom . 



THOMAS MILLER 



Little Brown Hands. 



TliHEY drive home the cows from the 
pasture, 
Up through the long shady lane, 
Where the quail whistles loud in the wneat 
fields, 
That are yellow with ripening grain. 
They find in the thick waving grasses 

Where the scarlet-lipped strawberry grows 
They gather the earliest snowdrops 

And the first crimson buds of the rose. 

Tliey toss the new hay in the meadow ; 

They gather the elder-bloom white ; 
They find where the dusky grapes purple 

In the soft-tinted October light. 
They know where the apples hang ripest, 

And are sweeter than Italy's wines ; 
They know where the fruit hangs the thickest 

On the long thorny blackberry vines. 

They gather the delicate sea-weeds, 

And build tiny castles of sand ; 
They pick up the beautiful sea-shells — ■ 

Fairy barks that have drifted to land. 
They wave from the tall, rocking tree-tops, 

AMiore tlie oriole's hammock-nest swings; 
And at night time are folded in slumber 

Bv a sons: that a fond mother sino:s. 



114 



LITTLE BROWN HANDS. 



Those who toil bravely are strongest ; 

The humble and poor become great ; 
And so from these brown-handed children 

Shall grow mighty rulers of state. 
The pen of the author and statesman — 

The noble and wise of the land — 
The sword, and the chisel and palette 

Shall be held in the little brown hand. 



M. H. KROUT. 



.J^ — ^=^^ 



JAMES MELVILLE'S CHILD. 




-^ 



NE time my soul was pierced as 
with a sword, 
Contending still with men un- 
taught and wild, 
When He who to the prophet lent his gourd 
Gave me the solace of a pleasant child. 

A summer gift my precious flower was given, 
A very summer fragrance was its life ; 

Its clear eyes soothed me as the blue of heaven, 
When home I turn'd, a weary man of strife. 

With unform'd laughter, musically sweet. 
How soon the wakening babe would meet 
my kiss : 

With outstretch'd arm its care-wrought father 
greet ! 
Oh, in the desert, what a spring was this ! 

A few short months it blossom'd near my heart : 
A few short months, else, toilsome all, and 
sad; 

But that home-solace nerved me for my part, 
And of the babe I was exceeding glad. 

Alas ! my pretty bud, scarce form'd, was dying 
(The prophet's gourd, it wither'd in a night); 

And He who gave me all, my heart's pulse 
trying, 
Took gently home the child of my delight. 

Not rudely cull'd, not suddenly it perish'd, 
But gradual faded from our love away : 

As if, still, secret dews, its life that cherish'd. 
Were drop by drop withheld, and day by day. 

My blessed Master saved me from repining. 
So tenderly He sued me for His own • 



So beautiful He made my babe's declining, 
Its dying bless'd me as its birth had done. 

And daily to my board at noon and even 
Our fading flower I bade his mother bring, 

That we might commune of our rest in Heaven, 
Gazing the while on death without its sting. 

And of the ransom for that baby paid 
So very sweet at times our converse seem'd. 

That the sure truth of grief a gladness made : 
Our little lamb by God's own Lamb redeem'd J 

There were two milk-wite doves my wife had 
nourish'd ; 
And I too loved, erewhile, at times to stand 
Marking how each other fondly cherish'd. 
And fed them from my baby's dimpled hand. 

So tame they grew that, to his cradle flying. 
Full oft they coo'd him to his noontide rest; 

And to the murmurs of his sleep replying. 
Crept gently in and nestled in his breast. 

'Twas a fair sight : the snow-pale infant sleep- 
ing, 
So fondly guardian'd by those creatures mild, 
Watch o'er his closed eyes their bright eyes 
keeping : 
Wondrous the love betwix the birds and 
child! 

Still as he sicken'd seem'd the doves too 
dwining, 
Forsook their food, and loathed their pretty 
play ; 
And on the day he died, with sad note pining, 
One gentle bird would not be fray'd away. 

His mother found it, when she rose, sad-hearted. 
At early dawn, with sense of nearing ill ; 

And when, at last, the little spirit parted, 
The dove died too, as if of its heart-chill. 

The other flew to meet my sad home-riding, 
As wdth a human sorrow in its coo ; 

To my dear child and its dead mate then 
guiding, 
Most pitifully plan 'd— and parted too. 

'Twas my first hansel and propine to Heaven; 

And as I laid my darling 'neath the sod. 
Precious His comforts — once an infant given. 

And ofi'er'd with two turtle-doves to God. 



11$ 



MRS. A. STUART MENTEATH 



THE IBliE SHEPHEBD BOTS^ 



[SA RASXOR-AI^.a: 



^•|HE valley rings with mirth and joy; 

Among the hills the echoes play 
" ^^ A never, never-ending song, 

To welcome in the May. 
The magpie chatters with delight ; 
The mountain raven's youngling brood 
Have left the mother and the nest ; 
And they go rambling east and west 
In search of their own food ; 
Or through the glittering vapors dart 
In very wantonness of heart. 

Beneath a rock, upon the grass, 
Two boys are sitting in the sun ; 
Their work, if anj' work they have, 
Is out of mind, — or done. 
On pipes of sycamore they play 
The fragments of a Christian hymn ; 
Or with that plant which in our dale 
We call stag-horn, or fox's tail. 
Their rusty hats they trim : 
And thus, as happy as the day, 
Those shepherds wear the time away. 

Along the river's stony marge 

The sand-lark chants a joj'ous song; 

The thrush is busy in the wood, 

And caf ols loud and strong. 

A thousand lambs are on the rocks. 

All newly born ! both earth and sky 

Keep jubilee, and more than all. 

Those boys with their green coronal ; 

They never hear the cry, 

That plaintive cry ! which up the hill 

Comes from the depth of Dungeon-Ghyll. 

Said Walter, leaping from the ground, 
" Down to the stump of yon old yew 
We'll for our whistles run a race." 

Away the shepherds flew ; 

The}' leapt — they ran — and when they came 
Eight opposite to Dungeon-Ghyll, 
Seeing that he should lose the prize, 
" Stop ! " to his comrade Walter cries. 
James stopped with no good will. 
Said \ralter then, exulting, " Here 
You'll find a task for half a year. 

" Croi^s, if you dare, where I shall cross, — 

Come on, and tread where I shall tread " 

The other took him at his word, 

And followed as he led. 

It was a spot which you may see 

If ever you to Langdale go ; 



Into the chasm a mighty block 

Hath fallen, and made a bridge of rock. 

The gulf is deep below ; 

And, in a basin black and small, 

Eeceives a lofty waterfall. 

With staff in hand across the cleft 

The challenger pursued his march ; 

And now, all eyes and feet, hath gained 

The middle of the arch. 

When list ! he hears a piteous moan. 

Again ! — his heart within him dies ; 

His pulse is stopped, his breath is lost, 

He totters, pallid as a ghost. 

And, looking doTMi, espies 

A lamb, that in the pool is pent 

Within that black and frightful rent. 

The lamb had slipped into the stream, 

And safe without a bruise or wound 

The cataract had borne him doT\Ti 

Into the gulf profound. 

His dam had seen him when he fell — 

She saw him down the torrent borne; 

And, T\dth all a mother's love, 

She fi'om the lofty rocks above 

Sent forth a cry forlorn ; 

The lamb, still swimming round and round 

Made answer in that plaintive sound. 

When he had learnt what thing it was 

That sent this rueful cry, I ween 

Tlie boy recovered heart, and told 

The sight which he had seen. 

Both gladly now deferred their task; 

Kor was there wanting other aid : 

A Poet, one who loves the brooks 

Far better than the sages' books. 

By chance had hither strayed ; 

And there the helpless lamb he found 

By those huge rocks encomi^assed round. 

He drew it from the troubled pool. 

And brought it forth into the light ; 

The shepherds met him with his charge. 

An unexpected sight ! 

Into their arms the lamb they took, 

A^liose life and limbs the flood had spared ; 

Then up the steep ascent they hied. 

And placed him at his mother's side ; 

And gently did the Bard 

Those idle shepherd boys upbraid, 

And bade them better mind their trade. 



WILLI4.M WORDSWORTH. 



116 



^TOtStSLEEPINGtCHILD^ 



^^MT 



:5RT thou a thing of mortal birth, 
^ Whose happ3^ home is on our earth? 
Does human blood with life imbue 
Those wandering veins of heavenly blue 
That stray along that forehead fair, 
Lost mid a gleam of golden hair ? 
Oh ! can that light and airy breath 
Steal from a being doomed to death ; 
Those features to the grave be sent 
In sleep thus mutely eloquent; 
Or, art thou, what thy form would seem, 
A phantom of a blessed dream ? 

A human shape I feel thou art — 
I feel it at ni}' beating heart, 
Those tremors both of soul and sense 
Awoke by infant innocence! 
Though dear the forms by Fancy wove, 
We love them with a transient love ; 
Thoughts from the living world intrude 
Even on her deej^est solitude : 
But, lovely child ! thy magic stole 
At once into my inmost soul, 
With feelings as thy beauty fair, 
And left no other vision there. 

To me thy parents are unknown ; 
Glad would they be their child to own ! 
And well they must have loved before, 
If since thy birth tliey loved not more. 
Thou art a branch of noble stem, 
And, seeing thee, I figure them. 
What many a childless one would give, 
If thou in their stiU home wouldst live ! 
Tliough in thy face no famih' line 
Might sweetl}^ say, " This babe is mine !" 
In time thou wouldst become the same 
As their own child, — all but the name. 

How happy must thy parents be 
"Who daily live in sight of thee! 
Whose hearts no greater pleasure seek 
Than see the smile, and hear thee si:»eak. 
And feel all natural griefs beguiled 
By thee, their fond, their duteous child. 



What joy must in their souls have stirred 
When tli}^ first broken words were heard — 
Words, that inspired by Heaven, expressed 
The transports dancing in thy breast ! 
And for thy smile ! — thy lip, cheek, brow 
Even while I gaze, are kindling now 

I called thee duteous ; am I wrong ? 
No ! truth, I feel, is in my song: 
Duteous, thy heart's still beatings move 
To God, to Nature, and to love ! 
To God ! — for thou, a harmless child, 
Hast kept his temple undefiled ; 
To Nature ! — for thy tears and sighs 
Obey alone her mysteries ; 
To love ! — for fiends of hate might see 
Thou dwell'st in love, and love in thee. 
AVhat wonder then, though in thy dreams 
Thy face with mystic meaning beams ! 

Oh ! that my spirit's eye could see 
Whence burst those gleams of ecstasy ! 
That hght of dreaming soul appears 
To play from thoughts above thy years; 
Thou smilest as if thy soul were soaring 
To heaven, and heaven's God adoring. 
And who can tell what visions high 
]\Iay bless an infant's sleeping eye ? 
What brighter throne can brightness find 
To reign on, than an infimt's mind, 
Ere sin destroy, or error dim. 
The glory of the seraphim ? 
But now thy changing smiles express 
Intelligible happiness. 
I feel my soul thy soul partake. 
What grief, if thou wouldst now awake ! 
With infants happy as thyself 
I see thee bound, a jjlayful elf; 
I see thou art a darling child. 
Among thy playmates bold and wild ; 
They love thee well ; thou art the queen 
Of all their sports, in bower or green; 
And if thou livest to woman's height. 
In thee will friendship, love, delight. 



n7 



TO A SLEEPING CHILD. 



And live thou surely must ; tliy life 
Is far too spiritual for the strife 
Of mortal pain; nor could disease 
Find heart to prey on smiler like these. 
Oh ! thou wilt be an angel bright — 
To those thou lovest, a saving light — 
The staff of age, the help sublime 
Of erring youth, and stubborn prime ; 
And Avhen thou goest to heaven again, 
Th}.- vanishing be lil^e the strain 
Of airy harp — so soft the tone 
The ear scarce knows when it is gone ! 

Thrice blessed he whose stars design 
His spirit pure to lean on thine, 
And watchful share, for days and years, 
Thy sorrows, joys, sighs, smiles, and tears f 
For good and guiltless as thou art. 
Some transient griefs will touch thy heart — 
Griefs that along thy altered face 
Will breathe a more subduing grace 
Than even those looks of joy that lie 
Or the soft cheek of infancy. 
Though looks, God knows, are cradled there 
That guilt might cleanse, or soothe despair. 

O vision fair ! that I could be 
Again as young, as pure, as thee ! 
V^ain wish ! the rainbow's radiant form 
May view, but cannot brave, the storm ; 
Years can bedim the gorgeous dyes 
That paint the bird of Paradise ; 
And years, so Fate hath ordered, roll 
Clouds o'er the summer of the soul. 
Yet, sometimes, sudden sights of grace, 
Such as the gladness of thy face, 
O sinless babe, by God are given 
To charm the wanderer back to heaven. 
No common impulse hath me led 
To this green spot, thy quiet bed, 
\Yhere, by mere gladness overcome, 
In sleep thou dreamest of thy home. 
When to the lake I would have gone, 
A wondrous beauty drew me on — 
Such beauty as the spirit sees 
In ghttering fields and moveless trees, 
After a warm and silent shower 
Ere falls on earth the twilight hour. 
What led me hither, all can say 
Who, knowing God, his will obey. 



Thy slumbers now cannot be long ; 
Thy little dreams become too strong 
For sleep — too like realities; 
Soon shall I see those hidden eyes. 
Thou wakest, and starting from the ground 
In dear amazement look'st around ; 
Like one who, little given to roam, 
Wonders to find herself from home ! 
But when a stranger meets thy view, 
Glistens thine eye with wilder hue. 
A moment's thought who I may be, 
Blends with thy smiles of courtesy. 

Fair was that face as break of dawn. 
When o'er its beauty sleep was drawn, 
Like a thin veil that half concealed 
The light of soul, and half revealed. 
^Vhile thy hushed heart with visions 

wrought 
Each trembling eyelash moved with 

thought 
And things we dream, but ne'er can speak, 
Like clouds came floating o'er thy cheek^ 
Such summer-clouds as travel light, 
When the soul's heaven lies cold and 

bright — 
Till thou awokest ; then to thine eye 
Thy whole heart leapt in ecstasy ! 
And lovely is that heart of thine, 
Or sure those eyes could never shine 
With such a wild, yet bashful glee. 
Gay, half-o'ercome timidity ! 
Nature has breathed into thy face 
A spirit of unconscious grace — 
A spirit that lies never still, 
And makes thee joyous 'gainst thy will: 
As, sometimes o'er a sleeping lake 
Soft airs a gentle rippling make. 
Till, ere we know, the strangers fly. 
And water blends again with sky. 

O happy sprite ! didst thou but know 
What pleasures through my being flow 
From thy soft eyes ! a holier feeling 
From their blue light could ne'er be 

stealing; 



118 



TO A SLEEPING CHILD. 



But thou wouldst be more loth to i)art, 
And give me more of that glad heart. 
Oh ! gone thou art ! and bearest hence 
The glory of thy innocence. 
Bui with deep joy I breathe the air 
That kissed thy cheek, and fanned thy hair, 
And feel, though fate our lives must sever, 
Yet shall thy image live for ever! 

JOHN WILSON. 



•li 





EAR child ! whom sleep can 
hardly tame, 
As live and beautiful as flame, 
Thou glancest round my graver 
hours 
As if thy crown of wild-wood flowers 
Were not by mortal forehead worn, 
But on the summer breeze were borne, 
Or on a mountain streamlet's waves 
Came glistening down from dreamy caves. 

With bright round cheek, amid whose glow 
Delight and wonder come and go ; 
And eyes whose inward meanings play, 
Congenial with the light of day ; 
And brow so calm, a home for Thought 
Before he knows his dwelhng wrought; 
Though wise indeed thou seemest not, 
Thou brightenest well the Avise man's lot. 

That shout proclaims the undoubting mind; 
That laughter leaves no ache behind ; 
And in thy look and dance of glee. 
Unforced, unthought of, simply free. 
How weak the schoolman's formal art 
Thy soul and body's bliss to part ! 
I hail thee Childhood's very Lord, 
In gaze and glance, in voice and word. 



In sj^ite of all foreboding fear, 
A thing thou art of present cheer ; 
And thus to be beloved and know^n. 
As is a rushy fountain's tone. 
As is the forest's leafy shade, 
Or blackbird's hidden serenade. 
Thou art a flash that lights the whole— 
A gush from Nature's vernal soul. 

And yet, dear child ! within thee lives 
A power that deeper feeling gives. 
That makes thee more than light or air. 
Than all things sweet and all things fail ; 
And sweet and fair as aught may be. 
Diviner life belongs to thee. 
For 'mid thine aimless joys began 
The perfect heart and will of Man. 

Thus what thou art foreshows to me 
How greater far thou soon shalt be ; 
And while amid thy garlands blow 
The winds that warbling come and go, 
Ever within, not loud but clear. 
Prophetic murmur fills the ear. 
And says that every human birth 
Anew discloses God to earth. 

JOHN STERLING. 



^ Fai^ewbll, 



lY fairest child, I have no song to give 
you; 

No lark could pipe to skies so dull and 
gray; 
Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you 
For every day. 

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will b« 
clever ; 
Do noble things, not dream them, all day 
long; 
And so make life, death, and that vast forever 
One grand, sweet song. 



CHARLES KINGSLKY. 



119 



H (ELP YOURSELVE S. 




AXY boys and girls make a 
failure in life because thev 
do not learn to help them- 
selves. They depend on 
father and mother even to 
hang up their hats and 
to find their playthings. 
AVhen they become men 
and women, they will depend on husbands 
and wives to do the same thing. ^' A nail 
to hang a hat on," said an old man of 
eigfhtv' vears, ^*is worth evervthino; to a 
boy." He had been "through the mill/' 
as people say, so that he knew. His 
mother had a nail for him when a boy — 
" a nail to hang his hat on," and nothing 
else. It was '^Henry's nail" from Jan-, 
uary to January, year in and out, and no 
other member of the family was allowed 
to appropriate it for any purpose whatever. 
If the broom by chance was hung there- 
on, or an apron or coat, it was soon re- 
moved, because that nail was *^to hang 
Hemy's hat on." And that nail did much 
for Henry; it helped make him what he 
was in manhood — a careful, systematic, 
orderly man, at home and abroad, on his 
farm and in his house. He never wanted 
another to do what he could do for him- 
self. 

Young folks are apt to think that cer- 
tain things, good in themselves, are not 
honorable. To be a blacksmith or a boot- 
maker, to work on a farm or drive a team, 
is beneath their dignity, as compared with 
being a merchant, or practising medicine 
or law. This is peide, an enemy to suc- 
cess and happiness. Xo necessary labor is 
discreditable. It is never dishonorable to 
be useful. It is beneath no one's dig- 
nity to earn bread by the sweat of the 
brow. When boys who have such false 
notions of dignity become men, they are 



ashamed to helj:» themselves as they ought, 
and for want of this quality they live and 
die unhonored. Trying to save their dig- 
nit}^, they lose it. 

Here is a fact we have from a very suc- 
cessful merchant. AVhen he began busi- 
ness for himself, he carried his wares from 
shop to shop. At length his business 
increased to such an extent, that he hired 
a room at the Marlboro' Hotel, in Boston, 
during the business season, and thither 
the merchants, having been duly notified, 
would repair to make ptu'chases. Among 
all his customers, there was only one man 
who would carry to his store the goods 
which he had piu'chased. The buyers 
asked to have their goods carried, and 
often this manufacturer would carry them 
himself. But there was one merchant, 
and the largest buyer of the whole num- 
ber, who was not ashamed to be seen car- 
rying a case of goods through the streets. 
Sometimes he would purchase four cases, 
and he would say, " Xow, I will take two, 
and you take two, and we will cany them 
right over to the store." So the manu- 
facturer and the merchant often went 
through the streets of Boston qtiite heavily 
loaded. This merchant, of all the num- 
ber who went to the Marlboro' Hotel for 
their purchases, succeeded in business. He 
became a wealthy man when all the others 
failed. The manufacturer, who was not 
ashamed to help himself, is now living — 
one of the wealthy men of Massachusetts, 
ready to aid, by his generous gifts, every 
good object that comes along, and honored 
by all who know him. 

You have often heard and read the 
maxim, " God helps those who help them- 
selves." Is it not true ? 



WILLIAM M. THAYER. 



120 



^IiW^TIiE ^ED ^mm P00D*-H 








tOME back, come back together, 
All ye fancies of the past, 
IgYe days of April weather, 
^ Ye shadows that are cast 

By the haunted hours before ! 
Come back, come back, my Childhood ; 

Thou art summoned by a spell 
From the green leaves of the wildwood, 
From beside the charmed well, 
For Ked Riding Hood, the darling, 
The flower of fairy lore ! 

The fields were covered over 

With colors as she went ; 
Daisy, buttercup, and clover 

Below her footsteps bent ; 
Summer shed its shining store ; 
She was happy as she pressed them *■ 

Beneath her little feet ; 
She plucked them and caressed them ; 

They were so very sweet. 

They had never seemed so sweet before, 
To Red Riding Hood, the darling, 
The flower of fairy lore. 



How the heart of childhood dances 

Upon a sunny day ! 
It has its own romances, 

And a wide, wide world have they I 
A world where Phantasie is king. 
Made all of eager dreaming ; 

When once grown up and tall — 
Now is the time for scheming — ■ 
Then we shall do them all ! 

Do such pleasant fancies spring 
For Red Riding Hood, the darling. 

The flower of fairy lore ? 

She seems like an ideal love. 

The poetry of childhood shown. 
And yet loved with a real love, 

As if she were our own — 
A younger sister for the heart ; 
Like the woodland pheasant. 

Her hair is brown and bright ; 
And her smile is pleasant, 

With its rosy light. 

Never can the memory part 
With Red Riding Hood, the darling. 
The flower of fairy lore. 

Did the painter, dreaming 

In a morning hour. 
Catch the fairy seeming 

Of this fairy flower ? 
Winning it with eager eyes 
From the old enchanted stories, 
Lingering with a long delight 
On the unforgotten glories 
Of the infant sight? 

Giving us a sweet surprise 
In Red Riding Hood, the darling, 
The flower of fairy lore ? 

Too long in the meadow staying, 

Where the cowslip bends. 
With the buttercups delaying 
As with early friends. 

Did the little maiden stay. 
Sorrowful the tale for us ; 

We, too, loiter, 'mid life's flowers, 
A little while so glorious. 
So soon lost in darker hours. 

All love lingering on their way, 
Like Red Riding Hood, the darHng, 
The flower of fiiiry lore. 

Li^TITIA ELIZABETH LANDON, 



121 






OD will tate tare of baby dear,' 
My winsome darling said, 



When in her robe of white she knelt 
Beside her little bed. 



I could not lose my petted flower, 

So beautiful, so dear, 
2s or thought it was too dark and chill 

For such sweet blossoms here. 



Her tiny dimpled hands were clasped, 

As though she were in prayer, 
And oh ! methought a heavenly glow 
Fell on her golden hair. 

A ray, it may be, darted through 

The door just pushed ajar 
By angel hand, whose radiant face 

Like a bright evening star 

Looked down upon my darling one, 

Kneeling beside her bed, 
And smiled to hear the simple faith 

In the sweet words she said. 

^' Dod will tate tare of baby dear," 
And then the eyelids drooped ; 

I laid her gently down to sleep, 
But thought the angel stooped 

To kiss good-night ; for the red lips 

Were parted as she slept. 
And o'er her face a holy smile 

In rippling dimples crept. 

" God will take care of baby dear ! " 

Ah, yes ! I knew it well. 
E'en when the shadows, cold and chill, 

Upon her young life fell. 

And yet the mother-heart rebelled ! 

This puny hand, I said. 
Can shield her, guide her in the path 

Where God would have her led. 



" Dod will tate tare of baby dear,'' 

The parched lips murmured slow ! 
And then the eyelids drooped and closed 



Forever, here below ! 



Oh, mourning heart, hush thy sad wail; 

She's safe, now, in His love ; 
'^God will take care of baby dear'' 
In His bright home above. 



IDA GLENWOOD. 



THE QUEEN IN HER CARRIAGE 
IS RIDING BY, 



H, the queen in her carriage is passing by: 
Her cheeks are like roses, her eyes like 
the sky ; 

Her wonderful teeth are white as new milk, 
Her pretty blonde hair is softer than silk. 

She's the loveliest monarch that ever was seen; 
You ask of what country the darling is queen; 
Her empire extends not to far distant parts, 
She is queen of our household, the mistress of 
hearts. 

For scepter she lifts her soft dimpled hands ; 
Her subjects all hasten to heed her commands 
Her smile is bewitching, and fearful her fro"«Ti, 
And all must obey when she puts her foot 
down. 

May blessings descend on the bright little head, 
From the time she awakes till she's safely in 

bed; 
And now do you guess, when I speak of the 

queen, 
'Tis only our six months baby T mean ? 



122 



-csa/\s 



W|f l|ittet| mill tlie Jfalliitg Heaue^. 



THAT way look, my infant, lo! 
What a pretty baby-show ! 
See the kitten on the wall, 
Sporting Avith the leaves that fall — 
Withered leaves, — one, two, and three, 
From the lofty elder-tree ! 
Through the calm and frosty air 
Of this morning bright and fair, 
Eddying round and round, they sink 
Softly, slowly ; one might think. 
From the motions that are made, 
Every little leaf conveyed 
Sylph or fairy hither tending, 
To this lower world descending, 
Each invisible and mute 
In his Avavering parachute. 

But the Kitten, how she starts, 

Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts ! 

First at one, and then its fellow. 

Just as light and just as yellow; 

There are many now, — now one, — 

Now they stop, and there are none. 

What intenseness of desire 

In her upward eye of fire ! 

With a tiger-leap ! Half-way 

Now she meets the coming prey, 

Lets it go as fast, and then 

Has it in her power again ; 

Now she works with three or four. 

Like an Indian conjurer; 

Quick as he in feats of art, 

Far beyond in joy of heart. 

Were her antics played in the eye 

Of a thousand standers-by, 

Clapping hands with shout and stare, 

What would little Tabby care 

For the plaudits of the crowd ? 

Over happy to be proud. 

Over wealthy in the treasure 

Of her own exceeding j^leasure ! 

'Tis a pretty baby treat. 
Nor, I deem, for me unmeet ; 



^^r- 



Here for neither Babe nor me 
Other playmate can I see. 
Of the countless living things 
That with stir of feet and wings 
(In the sun or under shade, 
Upon bough or grassy blade), 
And with busy revellings, 
Chirp, and song, and murmurings. 
Made this orchard's narrow space. 
And this vale, so blithe a place; 
Multitudes are swept away. 
Never more to breathe the day. 
Some are sleeping ; some in bands 
Traveled into distant lands ; 
Others slunk to moor and wood. 
Far from human neighborhood ; 
And, among the kinds that keep 
With us closer fellowship, 
With us openly abide. 
All have laid their mirth aside. 

AVIiere is he, that giddy sprite. 
Blue-cap, with his colors bright, 
. Who was blest as bird could be 
Feeding in the apple-tree — 
Made such wanton spoil and rout. 
Turning blossoms inside out — 
Hung, head pointing towards the ground. 
Fluttered, perched, into a round 
Bound himself, and then unbound — 
Lithest, gaudiest Harlequin ! 
Prettiest tumbler ever seen ! 
Light of heart, and light of limb — 
AVliat is now become of him ? 
Lambs, that through the mountains went 
Frisking, bleating merriment. 
When the year was in its prime. 
They are sobered by this time. 
If you look to vale or hill. 
If you listen, all is still. 
Save a little neighboring rill 
That from out the rocky ground 
Strikes a solitary sound. 
123 



THE KITTEN AND THE FALLING LEAVES, 



Vainly glitter hill and plain, 
And tlie air is calm in vain; 
Vainly Morning spreads the lure 
Of a sky serene and pure ; 
Creature none can she decoy 
Into open sign of joy. 
Is it that they have a fear 
Of the dreary season near ? 
Or that other pleasures be 
Sweeter even than gayety ? 



Yet, whate'er enjoyments dwell 
In the impenetrable cell 
Of the silent heart which Nature 
Furnishes to every creature — 
A\Tiatsoe'er we feel and know 
Too sedate for outward show — 
Such a light of gladness breaks, 
Pretty Kitten ! from thy freaks, — 
Spreads with such a li\-ing grace 
O'er my httle Dora's face — 
Yes, the sight so stirs and charms 
Thee, Baby, laughing in my arms, 
That almost I could repine 
That your transports are not mine, 
That I do not wholly fare 
Even as ye do, thoughtless pair ! 
And I will have my careless season 
Spite of melancholy reason, 
WiU walk through Hfe in such a way 
That, when time brings on decay, 
Now and then I may possess 
Hours of perfect giadsomeness. 
Pleased by my random toy — 
By a kitten's busy joy, 
Or an infant's laughing eye. 
Sharing in the ecstasy — 
I would fare hke that or this. 
Find my wisdom in my bliss, 
Keep the sprightly soul awake, 
And have faculties to take. 
Even from things by sorrow wrought, 
Matter for a jocund thought — 
Spite of care, and spite of grief, 
To gambol with Life's falhng leaf 



^>. 



The Fairy Child. 



I HE summer sun was sinking 
With a mild light, calm and 
mellow ; 
It shone on my little boy's bonny cheeks, 
And his loose locks of yellow. 

The robin was singing sweetly, 
And his song was sad and tender; 

And my little boy's eyes, while he heard 
the song, 
Smiled with a sweet soft splendor. 

My little boy lay on my bosom 

Vliile his soul the song was quaffing; 

The joy of his soul had tinged his cheek, 
And his heart and his eye were laughing. 

I sate alone in my cottage, 
The midnight needle plying; 

I feared for my child, for the rush's light 
In the socket now was dying ! 

There came a hand to my lonely latch, 
Like the wind at midnight moaning; 

I knelt to pray; but rose again, 

For I heard my little boy groaning. 

I crossed my brow and I crossed my breast, 
But that night my child departed — 

They left a weakling in his stead, 
And I am broken-hearted \ 

Oh ! it cannot be my own sweet boy. 

For his eyes are dun and hollow; 
My little boy is gone — is gone. 

And his mother soon will follow. 

The dirge for the dead will be sung for me, 
And the mass be chanted meetly, 

And I shall sleep with my little boy. 
In the moonlit churchyard sweetly. 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 



JOHN ANSTER. 



124 









THRENODY 




tp 



oriAM^ 



HE South-wind brings 
Life, sunshine, and desire, 
And on every mount and meadow 
Breathes aromatic fire ; 

But over the dead he has no power ; 

The lost, the lost, he cannot restore ; 

And, looking over the hills, I mourn 

The darling who shall not return. 

I see my empty house ; 

I see my trees repair their boughs ; 

And he, the wondrous child. 

Whose silver warble wild 

Outvalued every pulsing sound 

Within the air's cerulean round — 

The hyacinthine boy, lor whom 

Morn well might break and April bloom — 

The gracious boy, who did adorn 

The world whereinto he was born, 

And by his countenance repay 

The favor of the loving Day — 

Has disappeared from the Day's eye; 

Far and wide she cannot find him ; 

My hopes pursue, they cannot bind him. 

Returned this day, the South-wind searches. 

And finds young pines and budding birches ; 

But finds not the budding man ; 

Nature, who lost him, cannot remake him ; 

Fate let him fall. Fate can't retake him ; 

Nature, Fate, Men, him seek in vain. 

And whither now, my truant wise and sweet. 

Oh, whither tend thy feet? 

I had the right, few days ago. 

Thy steps to watch, thy place to know ; 

How have I forfeited the right '? 

Hast thou forgot me in a new delight ? 

I hearken for thy household cheer, 

eloquent child ! 

Whose voice, an equal messenger, 

Conveyed thy meaning mild. 

What though the pains and joys 

Whereof it spoke were toys 

Fitting his age and ken. 

Yet fairest dames and bearded men, 

Who heard the sweet request. 

So gentle, wise, and grave. 

Bended with joy to his behest, 



And let the world's affairs go by, 
Awhile to share his cordial game, 
Or mend his wicker wagon-frame. 
Still plotting how their hungry ear 
That winsome voice again might hear 
For his lips could well pronounce 
Words that were jDersuasions. 



Gentlest guardians marked serene 
His early hope, his liberal mien ; 
Took counsel from his guiding eyes 
To make this wisdom earthly wise. 
Ah, vainly do these e3'es recall 
The school-march, each day's festival. 
When every morn my bosom glowed 
To watch the convoy on the road ; 
The babe in willow wagon closed, 
With rolling eyes and face composed; 
With children forward and behind, 
Like Cupids studiously inclined ; 
And he the chieftain paced beside. 
The centre of the troop allied. 
With sunny face of sweet repose. 
To guard the babe from fancied foes. 
The little captain innocent 
Took the eye with him as he went; 
Each village senior paused to scan 
And speak the lovely caravan. 
From the window I look out 
To mark thy beautiful parade. 
Stately marching in cap and coat 
To some tune by fairies played ; 
A music, heard by thee alone, 
To works as noble led thee on. 



Now Love and Pride, alas ! in vain, 
Up and down their glances strain. 
The painted sled stands where it stood; 
The kennel by the corded wood ; 
The gathered sticks to stanch the wall 
Of the snow-tower, when snow should fall; 
The ominous hole he dug in the sand. 
And childhood's castles built or planned : 
His daily haunts I well discern — 
The poultry-yard, the shed, the barn— 
And every inch of garden ground 
Paced by the blessed feet around 



125 



THRENODY. 



From the roadside to the brook 

Whereinto he loved to look. 

Step the meek birds where erst they ranged 

The wintry garden lies unchanged : 

The brook into the stream runs on ; 

But the deep-eyed boy is gone. 

On that shaded day, 

Dark wdth more clouds than tempests are, 

When thou didst yield thy innocent breath 

In birdlike heavings unto death, 

Night came, and Nature had not thee ; 

I said : " We are mates in misery." 

The morrow dawned with needless glow ; 

Each snowbird chirped, each fowl must crow 

Each tramper started ; but the feet 

Of the most beautiful and sweet 

Of human youth had left the hill 

And garden — they were bound and still. 

There's not a sparrow or a wren, 

There's not a blade of Autumn grain. 

Which the four seasons do not tend. 

And tides of life and increase lend ; 

And every chick of every bird. 

And weed and rock-moss is preferred. 

Oh, ostrich-like forgetfulness ! 

Oh loss of larger in the less ! 

Was there no star that could be sent, 

No watcher in the firmament, 

No angel from the countless host 

That loiters round the crystal coast, 

Could stoop to heal that only child, 

Nature's sweet marvel undefiled. 

And keep the blossom of the earth, 

Which all her harvests were not worth ? 

Not mine — I never called thee mine. 

But Nature's heir — if I repine. 

And seeing rashly torn and moved 

Not what I made, but what I loved, 

Grew early old with grief that thou 

Must to the wastes of Nature go — 

'T is because a general hope 

Was quenched, and all must doubt and grope 

For flattering planets seemed to say 

This child should ills of ages stay, 

By Avondrous tongue, and guided pen, 

Bring the flown Muses back to men. 

Perchance not he, but Nature, ailed; 

The world and not the infant failed. 

It was not ripe yet to sustain 

A genius of so fine a strain, 

Who gazed upon the sun and moon 

As if he came unto his own; 



And, pregnant with his grander thought, 
Brought the old order into doubt. 

His beauty once their beauty tried ; 
They could not feed him, and he died, 
And wandered backward as in scorn, 
To wait an aeon to be born. 
Ill day which made this beauty waste, 
Plight broken, this high face defaced ! 
Some went and came about the dead ; 
And some in books of solace read ; 
Some to their friends the tidings say ; 
Some went to write, some went to pray ; 
One tarried here, there hurried one : 
But their heart abode with none. 
' Covetous Death bereaved us all. 
To aggrandize one funeral. 
The eager fate which carried thee 
Took the largest part of me. 
For this losing is true dying ; 
This is lordly man's down-lying, 
This his slow but sure reclining. 
Star by star his world resigning. 

child of Paradise, 

Boy who made dear his father's home. 

In whose deep eyes 

Men read the welfare of the times to come. 

1 am too much bereft. 

The world dishonored thou hast left. 
Oh, truth's and nature's costly lie ! 
Oh, trusted broken prophecy ! 
Oh richest fortune sourly crossed ! 
Born for the future, to the future lost ! 

The deep Heart answered : " Weepest thou i 

Worthier cause for passion wild 

If I had not taken the child. 

And deemest thou as those who pore, 

With aged eyes, short way before — 

Think 'st Beauty vanished from the coast 

Of matter, and thy darling lost ? 

Taught he not thee — the man of eld, 

W^hose eyes within his eyes beheld 

Heaven's numerous hierarchy span 

The mystic gulf from God to man ? 

To be alone wilt thou begin 

When worlds of lovers hem thee in ? 

To-morrow when the mask shall fall 

That dizen Nature's carnival. 

The pure shall see by their own will, 

Which overflowing Love shall fill, 

'Tis not within the force of Fate 

The fate-conjoined to separate. 

126 



THRENODY, 



But thou, my votary, weepest thou? 

I gave thee sight — where is it now? 

I taught thy heart beyond the reach 

Of ritual, bihle, or of speech ; 

Wrote in thy mind's transparent table, 

As far as the incommunicable ; 

Taught thee each private sign to raise, 

Lit by the super-solar blaze. 

Past utterance, and past belief, 

And past the blasphemy of grief, 

Tlie mysteries of Nature's heart ; 

And though no Muse can these impart, 

Throb thine ^^^th Nature's throbbing breast, 

And all is clear fi'om east to west. 

'' I came to thee as to a friend ; 
Dearest, to thee I did not send 
Tutors, but a joyful eye. 
Innocence that matched the sk}^ 
Lovely locks, a form of wonder, 
Laughter rich as woodland thunder, 
That thou might'st entertain apart 
Tlie richest flowering of all art ; 
And, as the great all-loving Day 
Through smallest chambers takes its way, 
That thou might'st break thy daily bread 
With prophet, sa\'iour, and head ; 
That th6u might'st cherish for thine own 
The riches of sweet Mary's son, 
Boy-rabbi, Israel's paragon. 
And thoughtest thou such guest 
Would in thy hall take up his rest? 
Would rushing life forget her laws, 
Fate's glowing revolution pause ? 
High omens ask diviner guess, 
Not to be conned to tediousness. 
And know my higher gifts unbind 
The zone that girds the incarnate mind. 
\Mien the scanty shores are full 
With Thought's perilous, whirling pool ; 
When frail Nature can no more, 
Then the Spirit strikes the hour : 
My servant Death, with soh'ing rite, 
Pours finite into infinite. 

* Wilt thou freeze Love's tidal flow, 
^^^lOse streams through Nature circUng go ? 
Nail the wild star to its track 
On the half-climbed zodiac ? 
Light is light which radiates ; 



Blood is blood which circulates ; 
Life is life which generates ; 
And many-seeming life is one — 
Wilt thou transfix and make it none ? 

Its onward force too starkly pent 

In figure, bone, and lineament? 

Wilt thou, uncalled, interrogate, 

Talker I the unreplying Fate ? 

Nor see the genius of the whole 

Ascendant in the private soul, 

Beckon it when to go and come, 

Self-announced its hour of doom? 

Fair the soul's recess and shrine, 

Magic-built to last a season ; 

Masterpiece of love benign ; 

Fairer than expansive reason, 

Whose omen 'tis, and sign. 

Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know 

TMiat rainbows teach, and sunsets show? 

Verdicts which accumulates 

From lengthening scroll of human fates, 

Voice of earth to earth returned, 

Prayers of saints that inly biu'ued — 

Saying : What is excellent. 

As God lives, is permanent ; 

Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain; 

Hearts' love vAll meet thee again. 

Eevere the Maker; fetch thine eye 

Up to his style, and manners of the sky. 

Not of adamant and gold 

Built he heaven stark and cold ; 

No, but a nest of bending reeds, 

Flowering grass, and scented weeds : 

Or like a traveller's fleeing tent, 

Or bow above the tempest bent ; 

Built of tears and sacred flames, 

And virtue reaching to its aims ; 

Built of furtherance and pui-suing, 

Not of spent deeds, but of doing. 

Silent rushes the swift Lord 

Through ruined systems still restored, 

Broadsowing, bleak and void to bless, 

Plants with worlds the wilderness ; 

Waters ^Nith tears of ancient sorrow 

Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow. 

House and tenant go to ground, 

Lost in God, in Godlu ad found." 

R.\LPH WALDO EMERSON 





The Morning-Glory, 




iE wreathed about our dar- 
ling's head 
The morning-glory bright; 
Her little face looked out 
beneath, 
So full of life and light, 
So lit as with a sunrise. 

That we could only say, 
*^She is the morning glory true, 
And her poor types are they.'* 

So always from that happy time 

We called her by their name, 
And very fitting did it seem ; 

For sure as morning came, 
Behind her cradle-bars she smiled 

To catch the first faint ray. 
As from the trellis smiles the flower 

And opens to the day. 

But not so beautiful they rear 

Their airy cups of blue 
As turned her sweet eyes to the light, 

Brimmed with sleep's tender dew; 
And not so close their tendrils fine 

Round their supports are thrown 
As those dear arms whose outstretched plea 

Clasped all hearts to her own. 

We used to think how she had come, 

Even as comes the flower, 
The last and added perfect gift 

To crown Love's morning hour ; 
And how in her was imaged forth 

The love we could not say. 
As on the little dewdrops round 

Shines back the heart of day. 



We never could have thought, O God, 

That she must wither up 
Almost before a day was flown. 

Like the morning-glory's cup; 
We never thought to see her droop 

Her fair and noble head. 
Till she lay stretched before our eyes, 

Wilted, and cold, and dead ! 

The morning-glory's blossoming 

Will soon be coming round; 
We see their rows of heart-shaped leavei 

Upspringing from the ground; 
The tender things the winter killed 

Renew again their birth. 
But the glory of our morning 

Has passed away from earth. 

O Earth ! in vain our aching eyes 

Stretch over thy green plain ! 
Too harsh thy dews, too gross thine air, 

Her spirit to sustain ; 
But up in groves of Paradise 

Full surely we shall see 
Our morning-glory beautiful 

Twine round our dear Lord's knee. 

MARIA WHITE LOWELL 

.>ooi^oo<:o 

A MOTHER'S MOIININ& FBAYEB. 



i 



P to me sweet childhood looketh. 
Heart and mind and soul awake ; 

Teach me of thy ways, oh Father 1 
For sweet childhood sake, 



128 



A MOTHER'S MORNING PRAYER. 



In their young lieartp, soft and tender, 
Guide my hand good seed to sow, 

That its blossoming may praise thee 
Wheresoe'er they go. 

Give to me a cheerful spirit, 
That my little flock may see 

It is good and pleasant service 
To be taught of Thee. 

Father, order all my footsteps; 

So direct my daily way 
That, in following me, the children 

May not go astray. 

Let thy holy counsel lead me — • 
Let thy light before me shine, 

That they may not stumble over 
Word or deed of mine. 

Draw us hand in hand to Jesus, 

For his word's sake — unforgot, 
"Let the little ones come to me, 
And forbid them not." 



And these dark bodies and this sunburnt face 
Are but a cloud, and hke a shady grove. 

^Tor, when our souls have learn'd the heat to 
bear, 
The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His 
voice 
Saying: 'Come from the grove, my love and 
care. 
And round my golden tent like lambs 
rejoice.' " 

Thus did my mother say, and kissed me, 

And thus I say to little English boy, 
When I from black, and he from white cloud 
free, 
And round the tent of God, like lambs we 
joy. 

I'll shade him from the heat, till he can bear 

To lean in joy upon our Father's knee; 
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair, 
And be like him, and he will then love me. 

WILLIAM BLAKE. 



i 



THE LITTLE BLACK BOY. 

MY mother bore me in the southern 
wild, 
And I am black, but, oh, my soul is 
white ! 
White as an angel is the English child. 
But I am black, as if bereaved of light. 

My mother taught me underneath a tree ; 

And, sitting down before the heat of day, 
She took me on her lap and kissed me, 

And, pointing to the East, began to say : 

" Look on the rising sun ; there God does live. 
And gives his light, and gives his heat away, 

And flowers, and trees, and beasts, and men, 
receive 
Comfort in morning, joy in the noon-day. 

''And we arc put on earth a little space, 
That we may learn to bear the beams of love ; 
9 



HOW peacefully they rest, 
Crossfolded there 
Upon his little breast, 
Those small white hands that ne'er were 
still before, 
But ever sported with his mother's hair, 
Or the plain cross that on her breast she 
wore; 
Her heart no more will beat 

To feel the touch of that soft palm, 
That ever seemed a new surprise, 
Sending glad thoughts up to her eyes 
To bless him with their holy calm. 

Full short his journey was; no dust 

Of earth unto his sandals clave ; * 

The weary weight that old men must, 

He bore not to the grave. 
He seemed a cherub who had lost his way 
And wandered hither; so his stay 

With us was short; and 'twas most meet 
That he should be no delver in earth's clod. 

Nor need to pause and cleanse his feet 
To stand before his God, 



blest word — evermore! 



LOWELL. 



129 




J 

A SUNBEAM AND A SHADOW, 



^ 




(HEAR a shout of merriment, a laughing boy I see ; 
Two little feet the carpet press, and bring the child to me ♦ 
Two little arms are round my neck, two feet upon my knee ; 
How fall the kisses on my cheek ! how sweet they are to me ! 

That merrry shout no more I hear, no laughing child I see; 
No little arms are round my neck, nor feet upon my knee ! 
No kisses drop upon my cheek ; those lips are sealed to me. 
Dear Lord ! how could I give him up to any but to thee ! 

MONTHLY RELIGIOUS MAGAZINE, 



Some 0)ofPHEi^'s ^hild. 

T home or away, in the alley or street, 

Wherever I chance in this wide world to meet 
A girl that is thoughtless, or a boy that is wild. 
My heart echoes softly, *' 'Tis some mother^s child. '^ 

And when I see those o'er whom long years have rolled, 
Whose hearts have grown hardened, whose spirits are cold,- 
Be it woman all fallen, or man all defiled, 
A voice whispers sadly, "Ah! some mother's child .'^ 

No matter how far from the right she hath strayed ; 
No matter what inroads dishonor hath made : 
Ncmatter what elements cankered the pearl — 
Though tarnished and sullied, she is some mother's girl. 

No matter how wayward his footsteps have been ; 
No matter how deep he is sunken in sin : 
No matter how low is his standard of joy; — 
Though guilty and loathsome, he is some mother's boy. 



That head hath been pillowed on some tender breast ; 
That form hath been wept o'er, those lips have been pressed ; 
That soul hath been prayed for, in tones sweet and mild : 
For her sake deal gently with — some mother's child. 



FRANCIS L. KEELl] 



130 



4- 



111 llAf I iP A illLE 



^1^ CLOUD is on my heart and brow, 
UL The tears are in my eyes, 

^ ^ And wishes fond, all idle now, 

Are stifled into sighs ; — 
As, musing on thy early doom. 
Thou bud of beauty, snatched to bloom, 

So soon, 'neath milder skies, 
I turn, thy painful struggle past. 
From what thou art to what thou wast ! 

I think of all thy winning ways, 
Thy frank but boisterous glee. 
Thy arch, sweet smiles, thy coy delays, 

Thy step, so light and free ; 
Thy sparkling glance, and hasty run. 
Thy gladness when the task was done 

And gained thy mother's knee ; — 
Thy gay, good-humored, childish ease, 
And all thy thousand arts to please ! 

Where arc they now, and where, oh where ! 

The eager, fond caress. 
The blooming cheek, so fresh and fair, 

The lips all sought to press ? 
The open brow, and laughing eye. 
The heart that leaped so joyously? 

Ah ! had we loved them less ! 
Yet there are thoughts can bring relief, 
And sweeten even this cup of grief. 

Thou hast escaped a thorny scene, 

A wilderness of woe, 
Where many a blast of anguish keen 

Had taught thy tears to flow ; 
Perchance some wild and withering grief 
Had sered thy summer's earliest leaf. 

In these dark bowers below, 
Or sickening thrills of hope deferred. 
To strife thy gentlest thoughts had stirred ! 

Thou hast escaped life's fitful sea, 

Before the storm arose. 
Whilst yet its gliding waves were free 

From aught that marred respose ; 



Safe from the thousand throes of pain, 
Ere sin or sorrow breathed a stain 

Upon thine opening rose ; — 
And who can calmly think of this. 
Nor envy thee thy doom of bliss ? 

I culled from home's beloved bowers 

To deck thy last long sleep. 
The brightest-hued, most fragrant flowers 

That summer's dews may steep : 
The rosebud, emblem meet, was there, 
The violet blue, and jasmine fair. 

That drooping seemed to weep ; — 
And now I add this lowlier spell : — 
Sweets to the passing sweet, farewell ! 

ALARIC A. WATTS, 



THEIMOTHER'SIHOPK 



IS there, when the winds are singing 
In the happy summer time — 
When the raptured air is ringing 
With Earth's music heavenward springing, 

Forest chirp, and village chime — 
Is there, of the sounds tliat float 
Unsighingly, a single note 
Half so sweet, and clear, and wild, 
As the laughter of a child ? 

Listen ! and be now delighted : 

Morn hath touched her golden strings ; 
Earth and Sky their vows have plighted; 
Life and Light are reunited, 

Amid countless carollings; 
Yet, delicious as they are, 
There is a sound that's sweeter far- 
One that makes the heart rejoice 
More than all — the human voice I 



131 



THE MOTHERS HOPE, 



Organ finer, deeper, clearer, 
Though it be a stranger's tone — 
Than the winds or waters dearer, 
More enchanting to the hearer 
For it answereth to his own. 
But, of all its witching words. 
Those are sweetest, bubbling wild 
Through the laughter of a child. 

Harmonies from time-touched towers, 

Haunted strains from rivulets, 
Hum of bees among the flowers. 
Rustling leaves and silver showers, — 

These, ere long, the ear forgets ; 
But in mine there is a sound 
Ringing on the whole year round — 
Heart-deep laughter that I heard 
Ere my child could speak a word. 

Ah ! 'twas heard by ear far purer, 

Fondlier formed to catch the strain- 
Ear of one whose love is surer — 
Hers, the mother, the endurer 

Of the deepest share of pain ; 
Hers the deepest bliss to treasure 
Memories of that cry of pleasure ; 
Hers to hoard, a life-time after, 
Echoes of that infant laughter. 

'T is a mother's large affection 

Hears with a mysterious sense — 
Breathings that evade detection, 
Whisper faint and fine inflexion, 

Thrill in her with power intense. 
Childhood's honey'd words untaught 
Hiveth she in loving thought — 
Tones that never thence depart ; 
For she listens — with her heart. 



VACATION, 



t MASTER, no more of your lessons ! 
For a season we bid them good by, 
o-^ii^oy ^^^ Xmtyi to the manifold teachings 

Of ocean, and forest, and sky. 
We must plunge into billow and breaker; 

The fields we must ransack anew ; 
And again must the sombre woods echo 
The glee of our merry-voiced crew. 



From teacher's and preacher's dictation— 

From all the dreaded lore of the books- 
Escaped from the thraldom of study, 

We turn to the babble of brooks ; 
We hark to the field-minstrels' music. 

The lowing of herds on the lea. 
The surge of the winds in the forest, 

The roar of the storm-angered sea. 



To the tree-tops we'll climb with the squirrels; 

We will race with the brooks in the glens ; 
The rabbits we'll chase to their burrows ; 

The foxes we'll hunt to their dens ; 
The woodchucks, askulk in their caverns. 

We'll visit again and again ; 
And we'll peep into every bird's nest 

The copses and meadows contain. 

For us are the blackberries ripening 

By many a moss-covered wall ; 
There are bluehats enough in the thickets 

To furnish a treat for us all ; 
In the swamps there are ground-nuts in plenty; 

The sea-sands their titbits afford ; 
And, O, most delectable banquet, 

We will feast at the honey-bee's board ! 



O, comrades, the graybeards assure us 

That life is a burden of cares ; 
That the highways and byways of manhood 

Are fretted with pitfalls and snares. 
Well, school-days have tlieir tribulations ; 

Their troubles, as well as their joys. 
Then give us vacation forever, 

If we must forever be boys ! 



ivAMAN BLAN CHARD. 



EVERLY MOORE. 




like a sailor by the tempest hurled 

Ashore, the babe is shipwrecked on the world ; 
Naked he lies, and ready to expire, 
Helpless of all that human wants require ; 
Exposed upon inhospitable earth 
From the first moment of his hapless birth. 
Straight with foreboding cries he fills the room, 
(Too sure presages of his future doom). 
But flocks, and herds, and ev^ry savage beast, 
By more indulgent Nature are increased. 
They want no rattle for their froward mood, 
No nurse to reconcile 'em to their food 
With broken words: nor winter blasts they fear, 
Nor change their habits with the changing year: 
Nor for their safety citadels prepare ; 
Nor forge the wicked instruments of War : 
Unlabored Earth her bounteous treasures grants. 
And Nature's lavish hand supplies their common wants. 

John Drydeu 




SDFFEII^THEMTO COMEx 

UFFER that little children come to Me, 
Forbid them not." Emboldened by His words, 
The mothers onward press ; but finding vain 
The attempt to reach the Lord, they trust their babes 
To stranger's hands ; the innocents alarmed 
Amid the throng of faces all unknown. 
Shrink trembling till their wandering eyes discern 
The countenance of Jesus, beaming love 
And pity ; eager then they stretch their arms 
And, cowering, lay their heads upon His breast. James Geahami. 



CHILDHOOD. 

NOW is the May of life. Careering round, 
Joy wings his feet, joy lifts him from the ground, 
Pointing to such, well might Cornelia, say. 
When the rich casket slione in bright array, 
" These are my jewels !" Well of such as he, 
When Jesus spake, well might His language be, 
" Suffer these little ones to come to Me !" 

133 



Samuel Rodqees. 




-^'^ THESE aRE ^. M Yi- JEWELS:-^ 



ORXELIA, the 

author of the 



are my jewjls," 
whose portrait 
appears on an- 
other page, was 
the youngest 
daughter of Scipio Africanus the Elder and 
Amelia, his wife. She was born one hun- 
dred and eighty-nine years before Christ. 
Xo details have reached us of her early life. 
In her twentieth year she married Tiberius 
Gracchus. The union was a happy one, and 
they were blessed with many noble children. 
The public duties of Tiberius claimed his 
time, so that the care of the household and 
the education of the family devolved wholly 
upon Cornelia, and she acquitted herself of 
the duties in a manner which had elicited 
the admiration of the world. She main- 
tained in herself and transmitted to her 
sons the grand and severe virtues of her 
father. She had inherited from Scipio a 
love of the arts and for literature, and her 
letters which were extant in the time of 
Quintilian — two hundred years afterward 
— were often cited with praise by him and 
by Cicero. The reply of Cornelia to a 
wealthy lady of Campania who requested 
to see her jewels, is the most memorable 
incident of her career. Adroitly turning 
the conversation upon subjects likely to 
interest and detain her visitor, till her boys 
came home from school, she said, as they 
entered the room, " These are my jewels !" 
Probably no character was ever so clearly 
drawn in so few words ; no delineation can 
possibly add to it ; if nothing were known 
of Cornelia but this one speech, the historian 
iV'ould still find it a sufficient basis upon 
«rhich to coustruct the whole character. 
The three obscure lines in which Valerius 
Maximus narrates the anecdote, have pro- 



bably been as often translated, as widely 
repeated, and as deej^ly reflected upon, a; 
words, '^ These any other three which have been left us hy 
the Avriters of antiquity. 



ARE ALL THE CHILDREN IN? 

rpHE darkness falls, the wind is high, 
jj Dense black clouds fill the western sky ; 
^ The storm will soon begin. 
The thunders roar, the lightnings flash, 
I hear the great round rain-drops dash — • 
Are all the children in ? 

They're coming softly to my side ; 
Their forms within my arms I hide — 

Xo other arms as sure. 
The storm may rage with fury wild, 
With trusting faith each little child 

With mother feels secure. 



But future days are drawing near — 
They'll go from this warm shelter here, 

Out in the world's wild din. 
The rain will fall, the cold winds blow j 
I'll sit alone and long to know, 

Are all the children in ? 

Will they have shelters then secure, 
Where hearts are waiting strong and sure, 

And love is true when tried ? 
Or will they find a broken reed. 
When strength of heart they so much need 

To help them brave the tide ? 

God knows it all ; His will is best; 
I'll shield them now, and leave the rest 

In His most righteous hand. 
Sometimes the souls He loves are riven 
By tempests wild, and thus are driven 

Nearer the better land. 

If He should call me home before 
The children go, on that blest shore, 

Afar from care and sin, 
I know that I shall watch and wait 
Till He, the Keeper of the gate. 

Lets all the children in. 

Mes. S. T. Peery. 



134 



-^|cDE^¥P^ipi->TpE->CPDIiE;le^ 




WEET flower ! uo sooner blown than blighted — 
Sweet voice ! no sooner heard than lost — 
Young wanderer ! in thy morn benighted — 
Fair barque ! scarce launched ere tempest-tost I 
Oh ! who would wail thy brief career 
With lamentation's selfish tear? 
Oh ! who would stay thy upward flight 
Unto thy native land of light? 
Who to this world of sin and pain 
Thy spotless spirit would enchain? 
***** 

Sweet flower ! transplanted to a clime 

Where never come the blights of Time — 

Sweet voice ! which now shall join the hymn 

Of the undying seraphim. 

Young wanderer ! who hast reached thy rest 

With everlasting glory blest. 

Fair barque ! that wrecked on life's dark sea, 

Hast anchored in eternity. 

To toils so long, so hard, as mine, 

Be such a recompense as thine ! 

Rev. W. B. Clabkb. 



*^-*— a®— t-^ 




CHRIST BLESSING CHILDREN. 

THINK when I read that sweet story of old, 

When Jesus was here among men, 
How He called little children as lambs to His fold, 
I should like to have been with them then. 

I wish that His hand had been placed on my head, 
That His arms had been thrown around me, 

And that I might have seen His kind look when He said, 
Let the little ones come unto me. 

Yet still to His footstool in prayer I may go. 

And ask for a share in His love. 
And if I thus earnestly seek Him below, 

I shall see Him and hear Him above. 



In that beautiful place He has gone to prepare, 
For all who are washed and forgiven ; 

And many dear children are gathering there. 
Foe of such is the kingdom of heaven. 

135 



Mrs. J. LuKZ. 



aif fflS 1© 4 IIW 1®11 oaiiD. 



^OU are heartily tribute all they can towards spoiling you ; 

welcome, my but you will be equally fond of an excellent 

dear little cousin, mamma, who will teach you, by her exam- 

into this unquiet pie, all sorts of good qualities ; only let me 

world ; long may warn you of one thing, my dear, that is 

you continue in not to learn of her to have such an immode- 

it in all the hap- rate love of home as is quite contrary to all 

piness it can the privileges of this polite age, and to give 

give, and bestow up so entirely all those pretty graces of 

enough on all whim, flutter, and affection, which so many 

your friends, to charitable poets have declared to be the 

answer fully the impatience with which you prerogative of our sex. Oh ! my poor 

have been expected. May you grow up to cousin, to what purpose will you boast this 




have every accomplishment that your good 
friend, the Bishop of Derry, can already 
imagine in you ; and in the meantime, may 
you have a nurse with a tuneable voice, 
who may not talk an immoderate deal of 
nonsense to you. You are at present, my 
dear, in a very philosophic disposition ; 
the gaities and follies of life have no 
attraction for you ; its sorrows you kindly 
commiserate ! but, however, do not suffer 
them to disturb your slumbers, and find 
charms in nothing but harmony and repose. 
You have as yet contracted no partialities, 
are entirely ignorant of party distinctions. 



prerogative, when your nurse tells you, 
(with a pious care to sow the seeds of 
jealousy and emulation as early as possible,) 
that you have a fine little brother " come 
to put your nose out of joint?" There will 
be nothing to be done then but to be mighty 
good ; and prove what, believe me, admits 
of very little dispute (though it has occa- 
sioned abundance) that we girls, however 
people give themselves airs of being dis- 
appointed, are by no means to be despised. 
The men unenvied shine in public ; but it 
is we must make their homes delightful to 
them; and, if they provoke us, no less 



and look with a perfect indifference on all uncomfortable. I do not expect you to 



human splendor. You have an absolute 
dislike to the vanities of dress ; and are 
likely for many months, to observe the 
Bishop of Bristol's first rule of conversa- 
tion, Silence, though tempted to transgress 



answer this letter yet awhile ; but, as I dare 
say, you have the greatest interest with 
your papa, will beg you to prevail upon 
him that we may know by a line (before 
his time is engrossed by another secret com- 



it by the novelty and strangeness of all mittee) that you and yom- mamma are well, 

objects around you. As you advance fur- In the meantime, I will only assure you 

ther in life this philosophic temper will, that all here rejoice in your existence 

by degrees, wear off; the first object of your extremely; and that I am, my ver\^ young 

^admiration will probably be the candle, and correspondent, most affectionately yours, 

thence (as we all of us do) you wdll contract &c. 
a taste for the gaudy and the glaring, with- Catheei^e Talbot. 

out making one moral reflection upon the *^ 

danger of such false admiration as leads As he came forth of his mother's womb, 

people many a time to burn their fingers, naked shall he return to go as he came, and 

You will then begin to show great partiality shall take nothing of his labour, which he 

for some very good aunts, who will con- may carry away in his hand. Bible. 

136 



SHADOWS ON THE WALL 



LITTLE Bessie wakes at midnight, 
And upon the nursery wall, 
Sees she by the flickering fire light, 
Shadows dancing grim and tall. 

Now they rise and now they beckon, 
Nearer still they seem to come, 

Bessie's blue eyes gaze wide open. 
And her lips are stricken dumb. 

Bessie thinks they are ^'the witches," 
" Mary said they'd take away 

All the naughty little children, 
And IVe not been good to-day. 

*' Once I did not mind my mother, 

And I broke the china cup," 
So the little tender conscience 

All the past day's sins sums up. 

Still the dancing shadows waken 

Childhood's grief and childhood's fear, 

And there sink into the pillow 
Many a sob and many a tear ; 

Till the mother, sleeping lightly, 

Just within the open door. 
Wakes and listens for a moment ; 

Hastens barefoot o'er the floor; 

Folds the little weeping maiden 
Close within her loving arms; 

And upon that tender bosom 
Bessie sobs out her alarms. 



Then the mother, softly smiling, 
Whispers, ''All your witches tall, 

Oh, my foolish little Bessie, 
Are but shadows on the wall ! 

*^See, the tall ones are the andirons; 

That the wardrobe; this the chair; 
And the shawl upon the sofa 

Makes the face with flowing hair. 

" Has my darling then forgotten. 
When she said her evening prayer, 

How she prayed that God's good angels 
Still might have her in their care ? 

" Sure she knows that the Good Shepherd 
Guards his flock by day and night. 

And the lambs are folded safely, 
In the dark as in the light." 

Soon upon her mother's bosom 

Little Bessie falls asleep, 
Murmuring, as she clings the closer, 

" Pray the Lord my soul to keep." 

And the mother, softly kissing 
The wet eyelids and the hair, 

Tossed back from the snowy forehead, 
Clasps her close in voiceless prayer. 

That the Love which gave her darling, 
Still may keep till dawns the day 

When earth's haunting fears are over, 
And the shadows flee away. 



^«e^ 



M, W T H 



ftERE with an infant, joyful sponsors come, 
Then bear the new-made Christian to his home 
A few short years and we behold him stand 
To ask a blessing, with his bride in hand : 
A few, still seeming shorter, and we hear 
His widow weeping at her husband's bier : — 
Thus as the months succeed, shall inflmts take 
Their names; thus parents shall the child forsake; 
Thus brides again and bridegrooms blithe shall kneel, 
By love or law compelled their vows to seal. c r a'b b e 

137 



.^ 






(SASITLES IN UIHE FlI^E.¥ 




^ITTING by the fire-light, 
^ ^ In the twilight gray, 
Building airy castles, 

Bessie, Jack, and May, 
Curly brown and golden 
locks, 
Nestled close together, 
Heeding not the wailing 
winds 
Of November weather. 

Seeing in the wood-fire 

Many a vision rare; 
Tracing in their fancies, 

The future gay and fair. 
Well it is each dreamer 

Sees not down the years 
All his cares and sorrows, 

All his toils and tears. 

" Look ! I see a war-horse, 

Prancing, inky black, 
Don't you see me charging 

Fiercely on his back ? 
ISTow, again, I'm bowing 

To the loud ^Hurrah!' 
I've come back victorious — 

A hero from the war." 

"See the haughty lady, 

Turning cold away 
From the throng of suitors. 

Who all vainly pray. 
Oh, she will not listen, 

Noble though they be, 
She's w^aiting for her sailor, 

Sailing o'er the sea." 

Now it is sweet May's turn, 

Peering in the blaze. 
What can see dear blue eyes 

Of the future days ? 



"I can see a little urn, 
'Neath a willow tree. 

In a churchyard, all alone. 
That I think's for me." 

Boyish peals of laughter. 

Ring out clear and free, 
" Yes, I see the little urn, 

It's to make the tea. 
I'll come back from battle, 

Bessie from the sea. 
Dearest May shall sit at home, 

And brew us cups of tea." 



PliSTWrnMB &F MMM&mr. 



r^ MONG the beautiful pictures 

/!% That hang on Memory's wall 

m\ \ Is one of a dim old forest, 

^ That seemeth best of all ; 

Not for its gnarled oaks olden, 

Dark with the mistletoe ; 
Not for the-\T.olets golden 

That sprinkle the vale below ; 
Not for the milk-white lilies, 

That lean from the fragrant ledge, 
Coquetting all day with the sunbeams. 

And stealing their golden edge ; 
Not for the vines on the upland, 

AVhere the bright red berries rest. 
Nor the pinks, nor the pale sweet cowslip^ 

It seemeth to me the best. 

I once had a little brother. 

With eyes that were dark and deep ; 
In the lap of that old dim forest 

He lieth in peace asleejo : 
Light as the down of the thistle. 

Free as the winds that blow, 
We roved there the beautiful summers. 

The summers of long ago ; 
But his feet on the hills grew weary. 



138 



PICTURES OF MEMORY. 



And, one of the autumn eves, 
I made for my little brother 

A bed of the yellow leaves. 
Sweetly his pale arms folded 

My neck in a meek embrace, 
As the light of immortal beauty 

Silently covered his face ; 
And when the arrows of sunset 

Lodged in the tree-tops bright, 
He fell, in his saint-like beauty. 

Asleep by the gates of light. 
Therefore, of all the pictures 

That hang on Memory's wall, 
The one of the dim old forest 

Seemeth the best of all. 

ALICE GARY 



For the Children. 



COME stand by my knee, little children. 
Too weary for laughter or song ; 
The sports of the daylight are over, 

And evening is creeping along; 
The snow-fields are white in the 
moonlight, 
The winds of the winter are chill, 
But under the sheltering roof-tree 
The fire shineth ruddy and still. 

You sit by the fire, little children, 

Your cheeks are ruddy and warm; 
But out in the cold of the winter 

Is many a shivering form. 
There are mothers that wander for shelter, 

And babes that are pining for bread ; 
Oh, thank the dear Lord, little children. 

From whose tender hand you are fed. 

Come look in my eyes, little cliildren. 
And tell me, through all tlie long day, 

Have you thought of the Fatlier above us, 
/ho guarded from evil our way ? 

He heareth the cry of the sparrow, 
And careth for great and small ; 

In life and in death, little children, 
His love is the truest of all. 



Now come to your rest, little children, 

And over your innocent sleep, 
Unseen by your vision, the angels 

Their watch through the darkness shall 
keep ; 
Then pray that the Shepherd who guideth 

The lambs that He loveth so well 
May lead you, in life's rosy morning, 

Beside the still waters to dwell. 



THE CHILD ASLEEP. 



[rWEET babe ! true portrait of thy 
c^^ father's face, 

Sleep on the bosom that thy lips 
have pressed ! 
Sleep, little one ; and closely, gently j^lace 
Thy drowsy eyelid on thy mother's 
breast. 

Upon that tender eye, my little friend, 
Soft sleep shall come, that cometh not to 

me ! 
I w^atch to see thee, nourish thee, defend ; 
'T is sweet to watch for thee — alone for 

thee! 

His arms fall down; sleep sits upon his 
brow^ ; 
His eye is closed ; he sleeps, nor dreams 
of harm. 
Wore not his cheek the apple's ruddy glow, 
Would you not say he slept on Death's 
cold arm ? 

Awake, my boy ! I tremble with affright ! 

Awake and chase this fatal thought ! — 
Unclose 
Thine eye but for one moment on the light! 

Even at the price of thine give me repose! 

Sweet error !— he but slept— I breathe again. 
Come, gentle dreams, the hour of sleep 
beguile ! 
Oh ! when shall he, for whom I sigh in vain, 
Beside me watch to see thy waking smile? 
CLOTiLDE DK suRViLLE (French.) 
Translation of H. W. Longfellow. 



139 



MY MOTHERS STORIES. 



IEECALL a little verse my mother 
taught me one summer twilight, 
which, she remarked, she had taught the 
older children when they were little like 
me. It was this : 
''Have communion with few, be 

INTIMATE WITH OnE, DEAL JUSTLY BY 
ALL, AND SPEAK EVIL OF NONE/' 

And then she added cheerfully, ''It 
took some time to get your brother to re- 
peat it correctly ; he would say untimate 
for intimate, and justless instead of justly • 
But he learned it correctly at last, and, I 
may add, has never forgotten it. So with 
amusement were mother's good instruc- 
tions blended ; after the pleasant story 
about my brother's childhood it was im- 
possible to forget the text. 

But, alas, I have never taught it to my 
children ; so many papers, books, and 
magazines made expressly for children of 
this generation, hasten the lighting of the 
evening lamp, and the twilight lessons of 
home become fewer. But in them all I 
never read a more comprehensive para- 
graph, and one that would do to put in 
practice in every particular so thoroughly, 
and I hope if it gets into print, not only 
my children, but those of other house- 
holds, will commit it to memory, imbibe 
its spirit, and put it in practice through life. 



E. E. 



DULL BOYS. 



^INES, the stronger they be, the 
Id® more lees they have when they are 
new. Many boys are muddy-headed till 
they be clarified with age, and such after- 
wards prove the best. Bristol diamonds 
are both bright, and squared and pointed 
by nature, and yet are soft and worthless ; 



whereas Orient ones in India are rough 
and rugged naturally. Hard, rugged and 
dull natures of youth, acquit themselves 
afterwards the jewels of the country, and 
therefore their dullness at first is to be 
borne with, if they be diligent. That 
schoolmaster deserves to be beaten him- 
self who beats nature in a boy for a fault, 
and I question whether all the whipping 
in the world can make their parts which 
are naturally sluggish, rise one minute 
before the hour nature has appointed. 



DR. THOMAS FULLER. 



Ji j^emarkable Paby. 

IT was the peculiarity of this baby to 
be always cutting teeth. Whether 
they never came, or whether they 
came and went away again is not in evi- 
dence; but it had certainly cut enough, 
on the showing of its mother, to make a 
handsome dental provision for the sign of 
the Bull and Mouth. All sorts of objects 
were impressed for the rubbing of its 
gums, notwithstanding that it always car- 
ried, dangling at its waist, (which was 
immediately under its chin,) a bone ring, 
large enough to have represented the 
rosary of a young nun. Knife-handles, 
umbrella-tops, the heads of walking sticks 
selected from the stock, the fingers of the 
family, nutmeg-graters, crusts, the handloe 
of doors, and the cool knobs of the tops 
of pokers, were among the commonest in- 
struments indiscriminately applied for the 
baby's relief. The amount of electricity 
that must have been rubbed out of it in a 
week, is not to be calculated. Still, its 
mother always said, ^^ It was coming through, 
and then the child would he herself, ^^ and 
still it never did come through and the 
child continued to be somebody else. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 



140 



^nfferinj? of Childhood. 




HE sufferings of a bashful boy ! 
Can torture chamber be more 
dreadful than the juvenile 
party, the necessary parade of 
the Christmas dinner, to a shy boy ! I 
have sometimes taken the hand of such a 
one, and have found it cold and clammy ; 
desperate was the struggle of that young 
soul, afraid of he knew not what, caught 
by the machinery of society, which man- 
gled him at every point, crushed every 
nerve, and filled him with faintness and 
fear. How happy he might have been 
with that brood of young puppies in the 
barn, or the soft rabbits in their nest of 
hay ! How grand he was paddling his 
poor, leaky boat down the rapids, jump- 
ing into the river, and dragging it with 
his splendid strength over the rocks ! 
Nature and he were friends ; he was not 
afraid of her ; she recognized her child 
and greeted him with smiles. The young 
animals loved him, and his dog looked up 
into his fair blue eyes, and recognized his 
king. But this creature must be tamed ; 
he must be brought into prim parlors, 
and dine with propriety ; he must dress 
himself in garments which scratch, and 
pull, and hurt him ; boots must be put on 
his feet which pinch ; he must be clean — 
terrible injustice to a faun who loves to 
roll down-hill, to grub for roots, to follow 
young squirrels to their lair, and to polish 
old guns rather than his manner. 

And then the sensitive boy, who has a 
finer grain than the majority of his fel- 
lows, suddenly thrown in the pandemo- 
nium of a public school ! Nails driven 
into the flesh could not inflict such pain as 
such a one suffers; and the scars remain. 
One gentleman told me, in mature life, 
that the loss of a toy stolen from him in 



childhood still rankled. How much of 
the infirmity of human character may be 
traced to the anger, the sense of wounded 
feeling, engendered by a wrong done in 
childhood when one is helpless to avenge ! 
All this may be called the necessary 
hardening process, but I do not believe in 
it. We have learned how to temper iron 
and steel, but we have not learned how to 
treat children. Could it be made a money- 
making process, like the Bessemer, I be- 
lieve one could learn how to temper the 
the human character. Our instincts of 
intense love for our children are not 
enough ; we should study it as a science. 
The human race is very busy ; it has to 
take care of itself, and to feed its young ; 
it must conquer the earth — perhaps it has 
not time to study Jim and Jack and 
Charley, and Mary and Emily and Jane, 
as problems. But, if it had, would it not 
perhaps pay ? There would be fewer 
criminals. 

Many observers recommend a wise 
neglect — not too much inquiry, but a 
judicious surrounding of the best influ- 
ences, and then — let your young plant 
grow up. Yes; but it should be a very 
wise neglect — it should be a neglect which 
is always on the watch lest some insidious 
parasite, some unnoticed but strong ])ias 
of character, take possession of the child, 
and mould or ruin him. Of the ten ])oys 
running up yonder hill, five will be fail- 
ures, two will be moderate successes, two 
will do better, one wijl be great, good and 
distinguished. If such are the terrible 
statistics — and I am told that they are so 
— who is to blame? Certainly the parent 
or guardian, or circumstance — and what is 
circumstance ? 

APPLE ton's journal. 



HI 



THE PET LAMB. 



A PASTORAL. 



THE dew was falling fast, the stars l^egan " ^Tiat is it thou wouldst seek ? TMiat is want- 
to blmk ; ^ ing to thy heart ? 
I heard a voice; it said, ''• Drink, pretty Thy hmbs, are they not strong? And beautiful 
creature, di'mk ! " ^hou art. 
And, looking o"er the hedge, before me I espied This gi^ass is tender grass ; these flowers they 
A snow-white mountain-lamb ^ith a maiden have no peers ; 

at its side. -^^ ^^^^^ green corn all day is rusthng in thy 

ears I 
Xor sheep nor kine were near ; the lamb was 

all alone, *• If the sun be shining hot, do but stretch thy 

And by a slender cord was tethered to a stone ; woollen chain — 

With one knee on the grass did the little This beech is standing by, its covert thou canst 

maiden kneel , gain ; 

^Miile to that mountain-lamb she gave its For rain and mountain-storms — the like thou 

evening meal. need'st not fear ; 

The rain and storm are things that scarcely 

The lamb, while from her hand he thus his ^an come here. 

supper took, 

Seemed to feast with head and ears ; and his '^ Eest, httle young one, rest ; thou hast forgot 

tail with pleasure shook. i\-^q ^^y 

' Drink, pretty creature, chink ! " she said, in ^^i^en my father found thee first in places far 

away ; 



such a tone 
That I almost received her heart into mv own 



Many flocks were on the hills, but thou wert 

owned by none, 
And thy mother from thy side for evermore 

was gone. 

'*' He took thee in his arms, and in pity brought 

thee home : 
A blessed day for thee I Then whither wouldst 

thou roam ? 
A faithful nurse thou hast — the dam that did 

thee yean 
Upon the mountain-tops no kinder could have 

been. 

" Thou know'st that twice a day I ha^ e brought 

thee in this can 

Thus, thought I, to her lamb that httle maid ^^'esh water from the brook, as clear as ever 

might sing : — ^^^ ' 

And twice in the day, when the ground is wet 

"TMiat ails thee, young one? what? T\Tiy T^'ith dew, 

pull so at thy cord ? I bring thee draughts of milk — Avarm milk it 
Is it not well with thee ? well both for bed and is, and new. 

board ? 

Thy plot of grass is soft, and green as grass " Thy limbs vdW shortly be ivn.ce as stout as 

can be ; they are now ; 

Kest, httle young one, rest- what is 't that Then I '11 yoke thee to my cart like a pony in 

aileth thee ? the plough. 

142 



'T was little Barbara Lewthwaite, a child of 

beauty rare I 
I watched them with delight : they were a 

lovely pair. 
Now with her empty can the maiden turned 

away ; 
But ere ten yards were gone, her footsteps did 

she stay. 

Eight towards the lamb she looked : and fi'om 
a shady place 

I unobserved could see the workings of her 
face. 

If nature to her tongue could measured num- 
bers brino:. 



THE PET LAMB. 



My playmate thou shalt be; and when the 

wind is cold. 
Our hearth shall be thy bed, our house shall 

be thy fold. 

" It ^nll not, will not rest! — Poor creature, can 

it be 
That 't is thy mother's heart which is working 

so in thee ? 
Things that I know not of belike to thee are 

dear, 
And dreams of things which thou canst neither 

see nor hear. 

" Alas, the mountain-tops that look so green 

and fair ! 
I 've heard of fearful winds and darkness that 

come there ; 
The little brooks, that seem all pastime and 

all play, 
When they are angry roar like lions for their 

prey. 

" Here thou need'st not dread the raven in the 

sky; 
Night and day thou art safe — our cottage is 

hard by 
Why bleat so after me? Why pull so at thy 

chain? 
Sleep — and at break of day I will come to thee 

again ! " 

— As homeward through the lane I went with 

lazy feet, 
This song to myself did I oftentimes repeat ; 
And it seemed, as I retraced the ballad line 

by line. 
That but half of it was hers, and one-half of 

it wa« mine- 
Again and once again, did I repeat the song ; 
*'Nay," said I, ''more than half to the damsel 

must belong, 
For she looked with such a look, and she spake 

with such a tone, 
That I almost received her heart into my own." 

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 



MWTL^m Miss MmD^J^SSQMB. 

LITTLE Miss Meddlesome, scattering 
crumbs 
Into the library noiselessly comes — 
Twirls off her apron, tiltd open some books. 
And into a work-basket rummaging, looks. 



Out go the spools spinning over the floor, 
Beeswax and needle-case stepped out before ; 
She tosses the tape-rule and plays with the 

floss. 
And says to herself, "Now won't mamma be 

cross!" 

Little Miss Meddlesome climbs to the shelf, 
Since no one is looking, and, mischievous elf, 
Pulls down the fine vases, the cuckoo clock 

stops, 
And sprinkles the carpet \\ith damaging drops. 

She turns over the ottoman, frightens the bird, 
And sees that the chairs in a medley are 

stirred ; 
Then creeps on the sofa, and, all in a heap. 
Drops out of her frolicsome mischief asleep. 

But here comes the nurse, who is shaking her 
head. 

And frowns at the Mischief asleep on her bed ; 

But let's hope when Miss Meddlesome's slum- 
ber is o'er 

She may wake from good dreams and do 
mischief no more. 

JOEL BENTON. 



FATHER IS COMING ! 

NAY, do not close the shutters, child j 
For, far along the lane. 
The little window looks, and he, 
Can see it shining plain ; 
I've heard him say he loves to mark 
The cheerful fire-light in the dark. 

I know he's coming by this sign, 

That baby's almost wild ; 
See how he laughs, and crows, and stares — 

Heaven bless the merry child ; 
He's father's self in face and limb, 
And father's heart is strong in him. 

Hark ! hark ! I hear his footsteps now ; 

He's through tlie garden-gate ; 
Run, little Bess, and ope the door. 

And do not let him wait ; 
Shout, baby, shout ! and clap thy hands, 
For father on the threshold stands. 

MARY H O W I T T . 



143 




APPY season of child- 
hood ! Kind nature, 
that art to all a boun- 
tiful mother ; that vis- 
itest the poor man's 
hut with auroral radi- 
ance ; and for thy 
nurseling hast provid- 
ed a soft swathing of love and infinite 
hope, wherein he waxes and slumbers, 
danced-round {umgaukelt) by sweetest 
dreams ! If the paternal cottage shuts us 
in, its roof still screens us ; with a father 
we have as yet a prophet, priest and king, 
and an obedience that makes us free. The 
young spirit has awakened out of eternity, 
and knows not what we mean by time ; as 
yet time is no fast-hurrying stream, but a 
sportful, sunlit ocean ; years to the child 
are as ages : ah ! the secret of vicissitude, 
of that slower or quicker decay and cease- 
less down-rushing of the universal world 
fabric, from the granite mountain to the 
man or day-moth, is yet unknown ; and 
in a motionless universe, we taste, what 
afterwards in this quick-whirling universe 
is forever denied us, the balm of rest. 
Sleep on, thou fair child, for thy long 
rough journey is at hand ! A little while, 
and thou too shalt sleep no more, but thy 
very dreams shall be mimic battles ; thou 
too, with old Arnauld, wilt have to say in 
stern patience : '' Rest ? Rest ? Shall I 
not have all eternity to rest in?" Celes- 
tial Nepenthe ! though a Pyrrhus conquer 
empires, and an Alexander sack the world. 



he finds thee not; and thou hast once 
fallen gently, of thy own accord, on the 
eyelids, on the heart of every mother's 
child. For as yet, sleep and waking are 
one: the fair life-garden rustles infinite 
around, and everywhere is dewy fragrance, 
and the budding of hope ; which budding, 
if in youth, too frostnipt, it grow to flow- 
ers, will in manhood yield no fruit, but a 
prickly, bitter-rinded stone fruit, of which 
the fewest can find the kernel. 

THOMAS CARLYLE, 



-DfL 



^CRSDLE^SONG^ 



^LEEP my baby beside the fire, 
,_§ Sleep, child, sleep, 

Winds are wailing, nigher and nigher, 
Waves are raising, higher and higher. 

Sleep, child, sleep, 
While thy father out on the sea, 
Toils all night for thee and me. 

Sleep, my baby content and blest, 

Sleep, child, sleep ; 
Whether the heart in thy mother's breast 
Be light or heavy — so best ! so best ! 

Sleep, child, sleep. 
While thy father out on the sea, 
Toils all night for thee and me. 



144 




THE VILLAGE BAKBER. 




z_ : ^ — ■ ■ 



"^ 




A LIGHTER scarf of richer fold 
The morning flushed upon our sight, 
And Evening trimmed her lamps of gold 

From deeper springs of purer light ; 
And softer drips bedewed the lea, 
And whiter blossoms veiled the tree, 
And bluer waves danced on the sea 
When baby Zulma came to be ! 

The day before, a bird had sung 

Strange greetings on the roof and flown; 

And Night's immaculate priestess flung 
A diamond from her parted zone 

Upon the crib beside the bed, 

Whereunto, as the doctor said, 

A king or queen would soon be led 

By some sweet Ariel overhead. 

Ere yet the sun had crossed the line 

When we at Aries' double bars, 
Behold him, tempest-beaten, shine 

In stormy Libra's triple stars ; 
What time the hillsides shake with corn 
And boughs of fruitage laugh unshorn 
And cheery echoes wake the morn 
To gales of fragrance harvest-born 

In storied spots of vernal flame 

And breezy realms of tossing shade, 
The tripping elves tumultuous came 

To join the fairy cavalcade ; 
From blushing chambers of the rose. 
And bowers the lily's buds enclose. 
And nooks and dells of deep repose, 
Where human sandal never goes. 

The rabble poured its motley tide ; 

Some upon airy chariots rode, 
By cupids showered from side to side, 

And some the dragon-fly bestrode ; 
While troops of virgins, left and right. 
Like microscopic trails of light, 
The sweeping pageant made as bright 
As beams a rainbow in its flight ! 

10 145 



It passed ; the bloom of purple plums 

Was rippled by trumpets rallying long 
O'er beds of pink's and dwarflsh drums 

Struck all the insect world to song ; 
The milkmaid caught the low refrain. 
The ploughman answered to her strain, 
And every warbler of the plain 
The ringing chorus chirped again ! 

Beneath the sunset's faded arch. 

It formed and filed within our porch. 
With not a ray to guide its march 

Except the twilight's silver torch ; 
And thus she came from clouds above, 
With spirits of the glen and grove, 
A flower of grace, a cooing dove, 
A shrine of prayer and star of love ! 

A queen of hearts ! — her mighty chains 
Are beads of coral round her strung, 
And, ribbon-diademed, she reigns. 

Commanding in an unknown tongue ; 
The kitten spies her cunning ways, 
The patient cur romps in her plays, 
And glimps'es of her earlier days 
Are seen in picture-books of fays. 

To fondle all things doth she choose. 
And when she gets, what some one sends, 

A trifling gift of tinny shoes, 

She kisses both as lo\dng Mends ; 

For in her eyes this orb of care. 

Whose hopes are heaps of frosted hair, 

Is but a garland, trim and fair, 

Of cherubs twining in the air. 

0, from a soul suffused with tears 

Of trust thou mayst be spared the thorn 
Which it has felt in other years, — 
Across the morn our Lord was born^ 
I waft thee blessings ! At thy side 
May his invisible seraphs ghde ; 
And tell thee still, what'er l)etide, 
For thee, for thine, for all, He died ! 

AUGUSTUS .lULIAN REQUIER 



ilTTtE fttr 




wo little feet, so small that both may nestle 

In one caressing hand, — 
[ Two tender feet upon the untried border 
Of life's mysterious land. 

Dimpled and soft, and pink as peach-tree blossoms 

In April's fragrant days, 
How can they walk among the briery tangles., 

Treading the world's rough ways ? 

These rose- white feet along with the doubtful future, 

Must bear a mothers load ; 
Alas ! since Woman has the heaviest burden, 

And walks the harder road. 

Love for a while will make the path before them 

All dainty, smooth and fair, — 
Will cull away the brambles, letting only 

The roses blossom there. 

But when the mother's watchful eyes are shrouded 

Away from sight of men. 
And these dear feet are left without her guiding, 

Who shall direct them then ? 

How will they be allured, betrayed, deluded, 

Poor little untaught feet ! 
Into what dreary mazes will they wander, 

AVhat dangers will they meet ? 

Will they go stumbling blindly in the darkness 

Of sorrow's tearful shades ? 
Or find the upland slopes of Peace and Beauty, 

Whose sunlight never fades ? 

Will they go toiling up ambition's summit. 

The common world above ? 

Or in some nameless vale, securely sheltered, 
Walk side by side with Love ? 



146 



'LITTLE FEET," Continued.^ 



-Va 



Some feet there be which walk Life's track unwounded 
Which find but pleasant ways : 

Some hearts there be to which this life is only 
A round of happy days. 

But these are few. Far more there are who wander 
"Without a hope or friend, — 

Who find their journey full of pains and losses 
And long to reach the end. 

How shall it be with her, the tender stranger 
Fair-faced and gentle-eyed, 

Before whose unstained feet the worlds rude highway 
Stretches so fair and wide ? 

Ah who may read the future? For our darling 
We crave all blessings sweet, 

And pray that He who feeds the crying ravens 
Will guide the baby's feet. 



FLORENCE PERCY 



ir0uitt of S]^Hb|axtb. 



HE cows are lowing along the lane, 
The sheep to the fold have come, 
And the mother looks from the cotta^o door. 
To see how the night' comes over the moor, 

And calls the children home. 

Their feet are bare in the dusty road, 
Their cheeks are tawny and red, 
They have waded the shallow below the mill, 
They have gathered wild roses up the hill, 
A crown for each tangled head. 

The days will come and the days will go, 

And life hath many a crown, 
But none that will press upon manhood's brow, 
As Jight as the roses resting now 

On the children's foreheads brown. 



^'^th^ooh Ste^-^af. 



T /.ITTLE children, young and aged, 
■'—^ Bear the blessing up ! 
Pour around the life elixir 
From your golden cup. 

Love is the divine restorer 
Of the souls of men ; 

This the new perpetual Eden 
We must seek again. 

Love is the eternal childhood; 

Hither all must conic, 
Who the kingdom -svould inherit 

Of the heavenly home. 



147 



SAIMK© ^ME BOATS, 



m 



■-^ii^- 




O! the jolly sailors, 

Lounging into port ! 
Heave ahead, my hearties — 

That's your lively sort ! 
Splendid sky above us, 

Merrily goes the gale. 
Stand by to launch away 

Kag and paper sail ! 

Archie owns a schooner, 

Jack a man-o'-war, 
Joe a clipper A 1 

Named the Morning Star; 
Charlie sails a match-box, 

Dignified a yawl ; 
Breakers on the lee shore — 

Look out for a squall ! 

Now we're bound for China — 

That's across the pond ; 
Then we go a-cmising 

Many a mile beyond. 
Man-o'-war is watching 

A rakish-looking craft — 
Kerchunk ! goes a bullfrog 

From his rushy raft. 

There's a fleet of lillies 

We go scudding round, — 
Bumblebees for sailors, — 

And they're fast aground. 
Here's a drowning fly 

In her satin dress. 
All hands, about ship ! 

Signals of distress. 

Argosies of childhood, 

Laden down with joys, 
Gunwale-deep with treasures! 

Happy sailor boys, 
May your merry ventures 

All their harbors win. 
And upon life's stormy sea 

Every ship come in. 

— GEO. COOPER. 



^1 NOTHER little form asleep, 
And a little spirit gone ; 
"^^^A Another little voice is hushed. 

And a little angel born. 
Two little feet are on the way 

To the home beyond the skies, 
And our hearts are like the void that comes 
When a strain of music dies ! 

A pair of little baby shoes, 

And a lock of golden hair ; 
The toys our little darling loved, 

And the dress she used to wear ; 
The little grave in the shady nook, 

Where the flowers love to grow ; 
And these are all of the little hope 

That came three years ago ! 

The birds will sit on the branch above. 

And sing a requiem 
To the beautiful little sleeping form 

That used to sing to them ; 
But never again with the little lips 

To their songs of love reply, 
For that silvery voice is blended with 

The minstrelsy on high ! 

knickerbocke: 

TOUCH NOT. 



OUCH not the tempting cup, my boy ; 

Though urged by friend or foe ; 
Dare when the tempter urges most. 

Dare nobly say. No — No ! 
The joyous angel from on high 
Shall tell your soul the reason why. 

Touch not the tempting cup, my boy ! 

In righteousness be brave ; 
Take not the first, a single step, 

Towards a drunkard's grave ; 
The widow's groan, the orphan's sigh 
Shall tell your soul the reason why. 



11 MffM lOY 



(AM all alone in my chamber now, 
And the niidnight hour is near, 
And the fagot's crack and the clock's dull tick 
Are the only sounds I hear; 
And over my soul, in its soltitude, 
Sweet feelings of sadness glide ; 
For my heart and my eyes are full when I think 
Of the little boy that died. 

I went one night to my father's house — ■ 

Went home to the dear ones all, — ■ 
And softly I opened the garden gate, 

And softly the door of the hall ; 
My mother came out to meet her son, 

She kissed me and then she sighed. 
And her head fell on my neck, and she wept 

For the little boy that died. 

And when I gazed on his innocent face, 

As still and cold he lay. 
And thought what a lovely child he had been 

And how soon he must decay, 
"O death, thou lovest the beautiful," 

In the woe of my spirit I cried ; 
For sparkled the eyes, and the forehead was fair, 

Of the little boy that died ! 

Again I mil go to my father's house, — ■ 

Go home to the dear ones all, — 
And sadly I'll open the garden gate, 

And sadly the door of the hall ; 
I shall meet my mother, but nevermore 

With her darling by her side. 
But she'll kiss me and sigh and weep again 

For the little boy that died. 

I shall miss him when the flowers come 

In the garden where he played; 
I shall miss him more by the fireside. 

When the flowers have all decayed ; 
I shall see his toys and his empty chair, 

And the horse he used to ride ; 
And they will speak, with a silent speech. 

Of the little boy that died. 

I shall see his little sister again 
With her playmates about the door. 

And I'll watch the children in their sports, 
As I never did before ; 



And if in the group I see a child 
That's dimpled and laughing-eyed, 

I'll look and see if it may not be 
The little boy that died. 

We shall all go home to our Father's house,— 

To our Fatlier's house in the skies. 
Where the hope of our souls shall have no blight, 

And our love no broken ties ; 
We shall roam on the bank of the River of Peace 

And bathe in its blissful tide : 
And one of the joys of our heaven shall be 

The little boy that died. 

J. D. ROBINSON. 



JVoSdbj^in tkeEouse. 



N 



baby in the house, I know, 
'T is far too nice and clean. 
No toys, by careless fingers strewn, 
Upon the floors are seen. 



No finger-marks are on the panes, 

No scratches on the chairs ; 
No w^ooden men set up in rows, 

Or marshalled off in pairs ; 

No little stockings to be darned, 

All ragged at the toes ; 
No pile of mending to be done. 

Made up of baby-clothes ; 

No little troubles to be soothed ; 

No little hands to fold ; 
No grimy fingers to be washed ; 

No stories to be told ; 

No tender kisses to be given ; 

No nicknames, " Dove " and " Mouse;" 
No merry frolics after tea, — 

No baby in the house I 



CLARA G. DOLLIVER. 



149 



irf 



aniattce 




wm§ 




I 



ITTLE Ellie sits alone 

'Mid the beeches of a meadow, 
By a stream-side on the grass, 
t And the trees are showering down 
Doubles of their leaves in shadow 
On her shining hair and face. 



She has thrown her bonnet by, 
And her feet she has been dipping 

In the shallow water's flow. 

Now she holds them nakedly 
In her hands all sleek and dripping, 

While she rocketh to and fro. 

Little Ellie sits alone, 
And the smile she softly uses 

Fills the silence like a speech, 

While she thinks what shall be done, — 
And the sweetest pleasure chooses 

For her future within reach. 

Little Ellie, in her smile, 
Chooses, ..." I will have a lover, 

Riding on a steed of steeds ! 

He shall love me without guile, 
And to Aim I will discover 

The swan's nest among the reeds. 

" And the steed shall be red-roan, 
And the lover shall be noble. 

With an eye that takes the breath ; 

And the lute he pla3^s upon 
Shall strike ladies into trouble, 

As his sword strikes men to death, 

*' And the steed it shall be shod 
All in silver, housed in azure, 

And the mane shall smm the wind ; 

And the hoofs along the sod 
Shall flash onward and keep measure, 

Till the shepherds look behind. 



" But my lover will not prize 
All the glory that he rides in. 

When he gazes in my face. 

He will say, '0 love, thine eyes 
Build the shrine my soul abides in. 

And I kneel here for thy grace.' 

'' Then, ay, then — he shall kneel lo^^ 
With the red-roan steed a-near him, 

Which shall seem to understand,— 

Till I answer, ' Rise and go ! 
For the world must love and fear him 
Whom I gift with heart and hand. ' 

" Then he will arise so pale, 
I shall feel my own lips tremble 
With a yes I must not say, 
Nathless maiden brave, ' Farewell, ' 
I will utter, and dissemble — ■ 

* Light to-morrow with to-day,' 

" Then he'll ride among the hiUa 
To the wide world past the river. 

There to put away all wrong, 

To make straight distorted wills. 
And to empty the broad quiver 

Which the wicked bear along. 

*Three times shall a young foot-page 
Swim the stream and climb the mountaiu 
And kneel down beside my feet : 

* Lo, my master sends this gage. 
Lady, for thy pity's counting ! 

What will thou exchange for it?' 

" And the first time I will send 
A white rosebud for a guerdon, — 

And the second time, a glove ; 

But the third time I may bend 
From my pride, and answer, ' Pardon 

If he comes to take my love.' 



150 



ROMANCE OF A SWAN'S NEST. 



"Than tlie young foot-page will run- 
llicu my lover will ride foster, 

Till lie knceleth at my knee : 

' I am a duke's eldest son ! 
Thousand serfs do call me master,— 

But, O Love, I love but thee /' 



Little Ellie, with her smile 
Not yet ended, rose up gayly, 

Tied the bonnet, donned the shoe, 

And went homeward, round a mile, 
Just to sec, as she did dail^^, 

\yhat more eggs were with the two. 



" He will kiss me on the mouth 
Then, and lead me as a lover 

Through the crow." s that praise his deeds; 

And, when sou I-:!, v I by one troth, 
Unto him I will discover 

That swan's nest among the reeds." 

Ellie went home sad and slow. 
If she found the lover ever. 

With his red-roan steed of steeds. 
Sooth I know not ; but I know 
She could never show him — never 
That swan's nest among the reeds ! 

E L I Z A B I-: T H BARRETT BROWNING. 



Pushing through the elm-tree copse. 
Winding up the stream, light-hearted, 

Whero the osier pathway leads — 

Past the boughs she stoops — and stoj^s. 
Lo, the wild swan had deserted — 

And a rat had gnawed the reeds. 





f ^ mittiiwil ©i^Wifc 




RS BIRD slowly opened the drawer. There were 
little coats of many a form and pattern, piles of 
aprons, and row^s of small stockings ; and even a 
pair of little shoes, worn and rubbed at the toes, 
were peeping from the folds of a 2)aper. There 
was a toy, horse and wagon, a top, a ball — memor- 
iials gathered wnth many a tear, and many a heart-break ! She sat down by the 
drawer, and leaning her head on her hands over it, w^ept till the tears fell through 
her fmgers into the drawer. And oh, mother that reads this, has there never been in 
your house a drawer, or a closet, the opening of which has been to you like the 
opening again of a little grave. 



MRS . 11. B. STOWE. 



^he c^iMU of 



IT does not do to be always too keen-sighted, or to appear to be so, to little fits of 
wilfulness. Perhaps there is a struggle in the child's mind between the wish 
CO be good and the temptation to be naughty. Have w^e never such struggles our- 
selves? Would not a harsh word terminate the conflict in favor of wrong; while a 
smile, a look of kindly encouragement, will strengthen the feeble wish to do right? 
If we have felt temptation ourselves, let us pity and aid the little cre<itu res, even aa 
we are taught that our Saviour, " in that he himself suffered being tempted, he is able 
t o succor them that are tempted." mrs. pullan. 

151 



m'ummm'm -w^^es. 









FROM THE GERIklAN. 



HE moon it shines, 

My darling whines ; 
The clock strikes twelve : — God cheer 
The sick both far and near. 




God knoweth all; 

Mousy nibbles in the wall ; 
The clock strikes one : — like day 
Dreams o'er thy pillow play. 

The matin — bell 

Wakes the nun in convent cell ; 
The clock strikes two : — they go 
To choir in a row. 

The wind it blows, 

The cock he crows ; 
The clock strikes three : — the wagoner 
In his straw bed begins to stir. 

The steed he paws the floor, 

Breaks the stable door ; 
The clock strikes four ; — 'tis plain 
The coachman sifts his grain 

The swallows laugh, the still air shakes, 

The sun awakes ; 
The clock strikes five : — the traveller must be gone. 
He puts his stockings on. 

The hen is clacking, 

The ducks are quacking ; 
The clock strikes six : — awake, arise, 
Thou lazy hag, come, ope' thy eyes. 

Quick to the bakers run ; 

The rolls are done ; 
The clock strikes seven : — 
'Tis time the milk were in the oven. 

Put in some butter, do, 

And some fine sugar too. 
The clock strikes eight : — 
Now bring my baby's porridge straight. 

Translated by CHARLES T. BROOKS. 
152 





TAKE CARE OF THE CHILDREN. 




ANG me all the thieves in Gib- 
bet Street to-morrow, and the 
place will be crammed with 
fresh tenants in a week ; but 
catch me up the young thieves from the 
gutter and the door steps ; take Jonathan 
Wild from the breast ; send Mrs. Sheppard 
to Brideswell, but take hale young Jack 
out of her arms ; teach and wash me this 
unkempt young vicious colt, and he will 
run for the Virtue Stake yet; take the 
young child, the little lamb, before the 
great Jack Sheppard ruddles him and 
folds him for his own black flock in 
Hades ; give him some soap, instead of 
whipping for stealing a cake of brown 
Windsor; teach him the Gospel, instead 
of sending him to the treadmill for hunt- 
ing chapels and purloining prayer books 
out of pews ; put him in the way of filling 
shop tills, instead of transporting him 
when he crawls on his hands and knees to 
empty them ; let him know that he has a 
bodv fit and made for something better 



than to be kicked, bruised, chained, pinches! 
with hunger, clad in rags or prison gray, 
or mangled with gaoler's cat; let him 
know that he has a soul to be saved. In 
God's name, take care of the children, some- 
body ; and there will soon be an oldest in- 
habitant in Gibbet Street, and never a new 
one to succeed him. 

HOUSEHOLD WORDS. 



f NEVER dared hope much from those 
great beginnings of intellect and of 
memory, which are nevertheless so much 
admired in children. I know well that 
they must first come to their strength, and 
if those things show themselves earlier, it 
is not the better for it. 

BISHOP HALL. 



r 



O you ask what the birds say ? The sparrow, the dove, 
The linnet and the thrush say "I love and I love !" 
In the winter they're silent, the wind is so strong ; 
What it says I do not know, but it sings a loud song. 
But green leaves and blossoms and sunny warm weather, 
And singing and loving, all come back together. 
But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love, 
The green fields below him, the blue sky above. 
That he sings and he sings, and for ever sings he, 
'* I love my love, and my love loves me," 



^ 



I5e3 



.a=TME MMTTtiM @F ^IF^«k~^ 



forth in the battle of Hfe, my boy, 

Go while it is called to-day; 
For the years go out and the years come m, 
Regardless of those who may lose or ^\in — 
Of those who may work or play. 

And the troops march steadily on, mj^ boy, 

To the army gone before ; 
You may hear the sound of their falling feet, 
Going down to the river where the two worlds 
meet; 

They go to return no more. 

There is room for you in the ranks, my boy, 

And duty, too, assigned; 
Step into the front with cheerful grace — 
Be quick, or another may take your place. 

And you may be left behind. 

There is work to be done by the way, my boy, 

That you never can tread again ; 
Work for the loftiest, lowliest men — 
Work for the plow, adze, spindle, and pen ; 

Work for the hands and the brain. 



The Serpent will follow your steps, my boy, 

To lay for your feet a snare; 
And pleasure sits in her fairy bowers, 
With garlands of poppies and lotus flowers 

Enwreathing her golden hair. 

Temptations will wait b}' the way, my boy, 

Temptations without and within ; 
And spirits of evil, in robes as fair 
As the holiest angels in Heaven wear, 
Will lure you to deadly sm. 

Tlien put on the armor of God, ni}^ boy, 

In the beautiful days of youth ; 
Put on the helmet, breast-plate, and shield. 
And the sword that the feeblest arm may wield 

In the cause of Right and Truth. 

And go to the Battle of Life, my boy, 
With the peace of the Gospel shod, 
And before High Heaven do the best you can 
For the great reward, for the good of man, 
For the Kingdom and crown of God. 



THE cold winds swept the mountain's height. 
And pathless was the dreary wild. 
And mid the cheerless hours of night 
A mother wandered with her child : 
As through the drifting snow she pressed. 
The babe was sleeping on her breast. 

And colder still the winds did blovf, 
And darker hours of night came on, 

And deeper grew the drifting snow : 
Her limbs were chilled, her strength was gone. 

'' Oh Gcd!" she cried in accents wild, 

'If I must perish, save my child, !" 

She stripped her mantle from her breast, 
And bared her bosom to the storm, 

A-ud round the child she wrapped the vest, 
And smiled to think her babe was warm. 

^Vith one cold kiss, one tear she shed, 

And sunk upon her snowj^ bed. 

At dawn a traveller pasSv'^d by, 
i\.nd saw her 'neath a snowy veil ; 

The frost of c'.eath was in her eye, 

Her cneek was cold and hard and pale. 

He moved the robes from off the child, — 

The babe looked up and sweetly smiled i 

SEBA SMITH. 



liiipiPLB Booms. 



>!|(pOT those I sadly laid away, 
2/\il With little stockings soft and gay, 
That sunless, heart-sick, saddest day, 

I passed beneath the rod ; 
I v/ipe from them the gathering mould, 
I vronder at their growing old. 
Then think how long the streets of gold 
My little one has trod ! 

To-day a little larger pair 

Are traversing the hall and stair, 

Or somersaulting in the air. 

Are never, never still : 
Down at the heel ! Out at the toes ! 
Mud-covered ! Every mother knows 
How " in-and-out" her dear boy goes. 

Oft chide him as she will. 

But life and strength and glowing health, 
Come through those little boots b}^ stealth 
And willing errands, loves sweet wealth 

At bidding bring us joy. 
Bear ^ith the little boots, I pray ; 
Soon into life they'll walk away. 
And, sitting lone, your heart will say. 

Where is my little boy ? 

MRS. L. R. JONES. 



154 



V- 




THE BALD-HEADED TYRANT, 



|H ! the quietest home on earth had I, 
No thought of trouble, no hint of care; 
Like a dream of pleasure the day fled by, 
And Peace had folded her pinions there. 
But one day there joined in our household band 
A. bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land. 

Oh, the despot came in the dead of night. 

And no one ventured to ask him why ; 
Like slaves we trembled before his might, 

Our hearts stood still when we heard him cry; 
For never a soul could his power withstand, 
That bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land. 

He ordered us here and he sent us there— 
Though never a word could his small lips 
speak — 

With his toothless gums and his vacant stare, 
And his helpless limbs so frail and weak. 

Till I cried, in a voice of stern command, 

"Go up thou baldhead from No-man's-land!'' 

But his abject slaves they turned on me; 

Like the bears in Scripture, they'd rend me 
there, 
The while they worshipped with bended knee 

This ruthless wretch with the missing hair ; 
For he rules them all with relentless hand, 
This bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land. 

Then I searched for help in every clime. 
For peace had fled from my dwelling now, 

Till I finally thought of old Father Time, 
And low before him I made my bow. 

'•Wilt thou deliver me out of his hand. 

This bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land?" 

Old Time he looked with a puzzled stare, 
And a smile came over his features grim, 

"I'll take the tyrant under my care; 
Watch what my hour-glass does to him. 

The veriest humbug that ever was ]:)lanned 

Is this same bald-head from No-man's-land." 

Old Time is doing his work full well — 

Much less of might does the tyrant wield; 
But, ah ! with sorrow my heart will swell 



And sad tears fall as I see him yield. 
Could I stay the touch of that shriveled hand, 
I would keep the bald-head from No-man's- 
land. 

For the loss of Peace I have ceased to care ; 

Like other vassals, I've learned, forsooth. 
To love the wretch who forgot his hair 

And hurried along without a tooth, 
And he rules me, too, with his tiny hand, 
This bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land. 

MARY R. VANDYNE. 



^ 



The period of childhood is y® happiest. 



-^3 



A Motb to h New-Born Child. 



SWEET cry ! as sacred as the blessed HjTnn 
Sung at Christ's birth by joyful Seraphim I 
Exhausted nigh to death by that dread pain, 
That voice salutes me to dear life again. 
Ah, God! my child; my first, my lo\^ng child! 
I have been dreaming of a thing like thee 
Ere since, a babe, upon the mountains wild 
I nursed my mimic babe upon my knee. 



In girlhood I had visions of thee ; love 
Came to my rijDer youth, amWtill I clove 
Unto thine image, born within my brain 
So like! as even there thy germ had lain I 
My blood! my voice! my thought! my dream 

achieved ! 
Oh, till this double life, I have not lived I 



THOMAS WADE. 



155 



Baby Liouise. 





M in love with jou, Baby Louise ! 
With your silken hair, and your soft blue eyes, 
And the dreamy wisdom that in them lies, 
And the faint, sweet smile you brought from Ihe skies, 
God's sunshine, Baby Louise. 

When you fold your hands^ Baby Louise, 
Your hands, like a fairy's, so tiny and fair, 
W-h a pretty, innocent, sainc-like air. 
Are you trying to think of some angel-taught prayer. 

You learned above, Baby Louise ? 

I'm in Love with you, Baby Louise ! 
Why, you never raise your beautiful head ! 
Some day, little one, your cheek will grow red 
With a flush of delight to hear the word said, 

" I love you," Baby Louise. 

Do you hear me. Baby Louise ? 
I have sung your praises for nearly an hour, 
And your lashes keep drooping lower and lower, 
And — ^you've gone to sleep like a weary flower, 

Ungrateful Baby Louise. 



-MARGARET EYTINGE. 



WIKIIE 



PMATEM 




NE sweet morning little Willie, 
Springing from his trundle-bed, 
Bounded to the vine- wreathed window 
And put out his sunny head. 



It was in the joyous spring-time, 
. ^^Tien the sky was soft and fair. 
And the blue-bird and the robin 
Warbled sweetly everywhere. 

In the field the lambs were playing, 
\Miere the babbling brook ran clear 

To and fro, in leafy tree-tops. 
Squirrels frisked without a fear. 



In his ear his baby-brother 

Baby-wonders tried to speak, 
And the kiss of a fond mother 

Rested on his dimpled cheek. 

Zephyrs from the fragrant lilacs 

Fanned his little rosy face, 
And the heart's ease, gemmed with dewdrops, 

Smiled at him with gentle grace. 

Gliding back with fairy footsteps, 

AVillie, dropping on his knees, 
Softly prayed "Dear God, I love you! 

Make it always happy, please ! " 



156 



in tk mtku of a 




TIRED of play ! Tired of play ! 
What hast thou done this livelong day ! 
The birds are silent, and so is the bee ; 
The sun is creeping up the steeple and tree ; 
The doves have flown to the sheltering eaves, 
And the nests are dark with the droojoing leaves, 
Twilight gathers, and day is done — 
How hast thou spent it, restless one ! 

Playing? But what hast thou done beside 
To tell thy mother at eventide ? 
What promise of morn is left unbroken? 
What kind word to thy playmate spoken? 
Whom hast thou pitied, and whom forgiven? 
How with thy faults has duty striven ? 
What hast thou learn'd by field and hill, 
By greenwood path, and by singing rill? 

There will come an eve to a longer day. 

That vdll find thee tired — ^but not of play! 

And thou wilt lean, as thou leanest now, 

With drooping limbs and aching brow, 

And Avish the shadows would faster creep. 

And long to go to thy quiet sleep. 

Well were it then if thine aching brow 

Were as free from sin and shame as now I 

Well for thee if thy lip could tell 

A tale like this, of a day spent well. 

If thine open hand has relieved distress — 

If thy pity has sprung to wretchedness — 

If thou hast forgiven the sore off'ence, 

And humbled thy heart with penitence — 

If Nature's voices have spoken with thee 

With her holy meanings eloquently — 

If every creature hath won thy love. 

From the creeping worm to the brooding dove^ 

If never a sad, low-spoken word 

Hath plead with thy human heart unheard — 

Then, when the night steals on, as now 

It will bring relief to thine aching brow 

And, with joy and peace at the thought of rest, 

Thou wilt sink to sleep on thy mother's breast. 

N. p. WILLIS. 



A MOTHER'S JOYS. 



I 



'VE gear enough, I've gear enough, 
I've bonnie liairnies three; 

Their welfare is a mine of wealth, 
Their love is a crown to me. 



The joys, the dear delights they bring, 

I'm sure I'd not agree 
To change for every worldly good 

That could be given to me. 

Let others flaunt in fashion's ring. 

Seek rank and high degree ; 
I wish them joy with all my heart. 

They're envied not by me. 
I would not give those loving looks, 

The heaven of those smiles, 
To bear the proudest name — ^to be 

The Queen of Britain's isles. 

My sons are like their father dear. 

And all the neighbors tell 
That my young blue-eyed daughter's just 

The picture of mysel'. 
Oh, blessings on my darlings all I 

They're dear as summers shine, 
My heart runs o'er with happiness 

To think that they are mine. 

At evening, morning, every hour 

I've an unchanging prayer, 
That Heaven would my bairnies bless. 

My hope, my joy, my care. 
I've gear enough, I've gear enough, 

I've bonnie bairnies three • 
Their welftire is a mine of wealth. 

Their love a crovvn to me. 

WILLIAM FERGUSON. 
— ..<,.-4^.«>. — 

THE GOLDEN AGE. 



Where children are there is the Golden Age. 

NOVALIS. 

©HE Spoi^tivb Boy. 



MTHILE childhood reigns, the sportive boy 

^^^^ Learns only prettily to toy, 

And while he roves from play to 1)1 ay, 

The wanton trifles life away. 

5 R o o M E . 



157 




WM Education domprige^. 



solidate 
religion 



IRST there must proceed a way how to discern the natural 
inclinations and capacities of children. Secondly, next 
must ensue culture and furnishment of the mind. 
Thirdly, the moulding of behaviour and decent forms. 
Fourthly, the tempering of affections. Fifthly, the 
quickening and exciting of observation and practical 
judgement. Sixthly, and the last in order, but the 
principal in value, being that which must knit and con- 
all the rest, is the timely instilling of conscientious principles and seeds of 

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 



She^ Sdumimn a/ iBh/ildi^n. 



Children pick up words as pigeons peas : 
And utter them again a& God shall please. 




N anxious mother asked Mrs. 
Barbauld at what age she should 
begin to teach her child to read? 
^^I should much prefer that a child should 
not be able to read before five years of 
age,^^ was the reply. Why then have you 
written books for children of three? 
*^ Because if young Mammas will be over 
busy, they had better teach in a good way 
than a bad one." I have known clever 
precocious children at three years dunces 
at twelve, and dunces at six particularly 
clever at sixteen. One of the most popu- 
lar authoresses of the present day could 
not read when she was seven. Her mother 
was rather uncomfortable about it, but 
said, that as everybody did learn to read 
with opportunity, she supposed her child 
would do so at last By eighteen this 
apparently slow genius paid the heavy 
but inevitable debts of her father from 
the profits of her first work, and before 
thirty had published thirty volumes. 



lattt b pring l[p il^ilbritt* 



■RING thy children up in learning 
and obedience, yet without outward 
austerity. Praise them openly, reprehend 
them secretly. Give them good counte- 
nance and convenient maintenance, accord- 
ing to thy ability; otherwise thy life 
will seem their bondage, and what [)or- 
tion thou shalt leave them at thy death, 
they will thank death for it and not thee. 
And I am persuaded that the foolish 
cockering of some parents, and the over 
stern carriage of others, causeth more 
men and women to take ill courses, than 
their own vicious inclinations. 

LORD BURLEIGH. 



Good Life, Long Life, 



I 



H O M . MISS MURRAY. 



N small proportion we just beauties see, 
And in short measures life may perfect be. 

BEN JONSON, 



158 




lilTTLE MOME BOBTo (! 



^ 




&— 



-f?) 



L 




TTTLE Home-body is mother's wee pet, 
Fairest and sweetest of Housekeepers yet ; 
Up when the roses in golden light peep, 
Helping her mother to sew and and to sweep. 
Tidy and prim in her apron and gown, 
Brightest of eyes, of the bonniest brown ; 
Tiniest fingers, and needles so fleet. 
Pattern of womanhood, down at my feet ! 

Little home-body is grave and demure, 

Weeps when you speak of the wretched and the poor, 

Though she can laugh in the merriest Avay 

While you are telling a tale that is gay. 

Lily that blooms in some lone, leafy nook ; 

Sly little hide-away, moss-sided brook ; 

Fairies are fine, where the silver dews fall ; 

Home fairies — these are the best of them all ! 



GEORGE COOPER. 




■t: 



'^ 



mat |ofH ftttle Itrdie %n^ 



FROM " SEA DREAMS. 



ADVICE TO CHILDREN 



w 



HAT does little birdie say 

In her nest at peep of day? 
Let me fly, says little birdie. 
Mother, let me fly away. 
Birdie, rest a little longer. 
Till the little Avings are stronger, 
So she rests a little longer. 
Then she flies away. 

What does little baby say. 
In her bed at peep of day ? 
Baby says, like little birdie, 
Let me rise and fly away. 
Baby sleep a little longer. 
Till the little limbs are stronger, 
If she sleeps a little longer, 
Baby too shall fly away. 

ALFRED TENNYSON. 



]0 no sinful action, 

Speak no angry word ; 
Ye belong to Jesus, 

Children of iho Lord. 

Christ is kind and gentle, 

Christ is j^ure and true, 
And his little children 

Must be holy too. 

There's a wicked spirit 
Watching round you stiP 

And he tries to tempt you 
To all harm and ill. 

But ye must not hear him 
Though 'tis hard for you 

To resist the evil 
And the good to do. 

C.'F. ALEXANDER, 



159 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN. 



/<• 





THE LITTLE CHILDREN. 

§ LITTLE feet; that such long 
years 
Must wander on through hopes and 
fears ; 
Must ache and bleed beneath the 
load; 
I, nearer to the wayside inn, 
Where toil shall cease and rest begin, 
Am weary thinking of your road. 

0, little hands ! that weak or strong. 
Have still to serve or rule so long, 

Have still so long to give or ask; 

1, who so much with book and pen 
Have toiled among my fellow-men. 

Am weary, thinking of your task. 

O, little hearts! that throb and 

beat 
With much impatient, feverish 
heat, 
Such limitless and strong desires ; 
, Mine, that so long has glowed and 

burned. 
With passions into ashes turned. 
Now covers and conceals its fires. 

O, little souls ; as pure and white, 
As crystalline, as rays of light 
Direct from Heaven, their source 
divine ; 
Eefracted through the mist of 

years. 
How red my setting sun appears ; 
How lurid looks this sun of 
mine ! 

Heis^et W. Lokgfellow. 

^ HOH 

ACH day when the glow of sunset 
Fades in the western sky, 
And the wee ones, tired of playing, 
Go tripping lightly by, 
I steal away from my husband, 

Asleep in his easy-chair, 
And watch from, the open doorway 
Their faces fresh and fair. 

Alone in the dear old homestead 

That once was full of life. 
Ringing with girlish laughter. 

Echoing boyish strife, 
We two are waiting together ; 

And oft, as the shadows come, 





With tremulous voice he calls me, 

" It is night ! are the children home V* 

" Yes, love !" I answer hin> gently, 

" They're all home long ago ;" 
And I sing, in my quivering treble, 

A song so soft and low. 
Till the old man drops to slumber, 

With his head upon his hand. 
And I tell to myself the number 

Home in a better land. 

Home, where never a sorrow 

Shall dim their eyes with tears ! 
Where the smile of God is on them 

Through all the summer years I 
I know ! — Yet my arms are empty 

That fondly folded seven. 
And the mother heart within me 

Is almost starved for heaven. 

Sometimes in the dusk of evening, 

I only shut my eyes. 
And the children are all about me, 

A vision from the skies ; 
The babes whose dimpled fingers 

Lost the way to my breast. 
And the beautiful ones, the angels. 

Passed to the world of the blessed. 

With never a cloud upon them, 

I see their radiant brows ; 
My boys that I gave to freedom — 

The red sword sealed their vows I 
In a tangled Southern forest, 

Twin brothers, bold and brave. 
They fell ; and the flag they died for, 

Thank God ! floats over their grave. 

A breath, and the vision is lifted 

Away on wings of light. 
And again we two are together. 

All alone in the night. 
They tell me his mind is failing. 

But I smile at idle fears ; 
He is only back with the children. 

In the dear and peaceful years. 

And still as the summer sunset 

Fades away in the west, 
And the wee ones, tired of playing, 

Go trooping home to rest. 
My husband calls from his corner, 

"Say, love! have the children come?" 
And I answer, with eyes uplifted, 

" Yes, dear ! they are all at home !" 

Mrs. M. E. Sangstee. 



160 



^ 



LL in our marriage garden 

Grew smiling up to God, 
A bonnier flower tlian ever 

Suckt the green warmth of the sod; 
O, beautiful unfathomably 

Its little life unfurled ; 
And crown of all things was our wee 

Wliite Rose 6f all the world. 

' From out a balmy bosOm 

Our bud of beauty grew ; 
It fed on smiles of sunshine, 

On tears for daintier dew : 
Aye nestling warm and tenderly, 

Our leaves of love were curled 
So close and close about our wee 

White Eose of all the world. 

With mystical faint fragrance 

Our house of life she filled ; 
Revealed each hour some fairy tower 

WTiere winged hopes might build! 
We saw — though none like us might see — 

Such precious promise pearled 
Upon the petals of our wee 

Wliite Rose of all the world. 

But evermore the halo 

Of angel-light increased, 
Like the mystery of moonlight 

That folds some fairy feast, 
Snow-white, snow-soft, snow-silently 

Our darling bud upcurled, 
And dropt i' the grave — God's lap — our wee 

White Rose of all the world. 

Our Rose was but in blossom, 

Our life was but in spring. 
When down the solemn midnight 

We heard the spirits sing, 
"Another bud of infixncy 

With holy dews impearled ! " 
A.nd in their hands they bore our wee 

Wliite Rose of all the world. 

You scare could think so small a thing 

Could leave a loss so large ; 
Her little light such shadow fling 

From dawn to sunset's marge. 

11 161 



In other springs our life may be 
In bannered bloom luifurled, 

But never, never match our wee 
White Rose of all the world. 



GERALD MASSE -v, 



SWEEJIl BABE, 



SWEET babe I 
She glanced into our world to see 
A sample of our misery ; 
Then turned away her languid eye, 
To drop a tear or two — and die. 

Sweet babe ! 
She tastes of life's bitter cup, 
Refused to drink the portion up ; 
But turned her little head aside, 
Disgusted with the taste and died. 

Sweet babe I 
She listened for a while to hear 
Our mortal griefs ; then turned her ear 
To angel harps and songs, and cried 
To join their notes celestial — sighed and died. 

Sweet babe no more, but seraph now; 
Before the throne behold her bow ; 
To heavenly joys her spirit flies. 
Blest in the triumph of the skies ; 

Adores the grace that brought-hcr there, 
Without a wish without a care. 
That washed her soul in Calvary's stream, 
That shortened life's distressing dream. 

Short pain, short grief, dear babe were thine ; 
Now joys eternal and divine ; 
Yes, thou art fled, and saints a welcome sing: 
Tliine infant spirit soars on angel-wing; 
Our dark afl'ection might have hoped thy stay 
The voice of God has called this child away. 
Like Samuel early in the temple found. 
Sweet rose of Sharon, plant of holy ground, 
Oh ! more than Samuel blest to thee is given, 
The God he served on earth to servo in heaven. 

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 



^MGELCHSRLIE.i- 



J i E came — a beauteous vision, 
fY Then vanished from my sight ; 
His wing one moment cleaving 

The blackness of my night; 
My glad ear caught its rustle, 

Then, sweeping by, he stole 
The dew-drop that his coming 

Had cherished in my soul. 

Oh, he had been my solace 

When grief my spirit swayed, 
And on his fragile being 

Had tender hopes been stayed ; 
Where thought, where feeling lingered, 

His form was sure to glide. 
And in the lone night-watches 

'Twas ever by my side. 

He came ; but as the blossom 

Its petals closes up, 
And hides them from the tempest 

Within its sheltering cup, 
So he his spirit gathered 

Back to his frightened breast, 
And passed from earth's grim threshold, 

To be the Saviour's guest. 

My boy — ah, me ! the sweetness, 

The anguish of that word ! 
My boy, when in strange night-dreams 

My slumbering soul is stirred ; 
When music floats around me. 

When soft lips touch my brow, 
And whisper gentle greetings, 

Oh, tell me, is it thou ? 

J. know by one sweet token 

iNIy Charlie is not dead ; 
One golden clue he left me 

As on his track he sped ; 
Were be some gem or blossom, 

But fashioned for to-day, 
My love would slowly perish 

With his dissolving clay. 



Oh, by this deathless yearning, 

Which is not idly given ; 
By the delicious nearness 

My spirit feels to heaven ; 
By dreams that throng my night-sleep^ 

By visions of the day, 
By whispers when I'm erring. 

By promptings when I pray ; — • 

I know this life so cherished. 

Which sprang beneath my heart, 
Which formed of my own being 

So beautiful a part ; 
This precious, winsome creature, 

My unfledged, voiceless dove, 
Lifts now a seraph's pinion, 

And warbles lays of love. 

Oh, I would not recall thee. 

My glorious angel-boy ! 
Thou needest not my bosom. 

Rare bird of light and joy ! 
Here dash I down the tear-drops, 

Still gathering in my eyes ; 
Blest — oh how blest ! — in adding 

A seraph to the skies ! 

EMILY C. JUDSOiSf 




wtr. 



WILLIE, fold your little hands ; 
Let it drop that soldier toy : 
Look where father's picture stands,— 

Father, who here kissed his boy 
Not two months since — father kind. 
Who this night may — Never mind 
Mother's sob, my Willie dear, 
Call aloud that He may hear 
Who is God of battles, — say, 
" Oh, keep father safe this day 

By the AJmaKiver" 



162 



BY THE ALMA RIVER, 



Ask no more, child. Never heed 
Either Russ, oi Frank, or Turk, 

Right of nations or of creed, 

Chance-poised victory's bloody work : 

Any flag i' the wind may roll 

On thy heights, Sebastopol ! 

AVillie, all to you and me 

Is that spot, where'er it be, 

Where he stands — no other word ! 

St'jnds — God sure the child's prayer heard — 
By the Alma River. 

Willie, listen to the bells 

Ringing through the town to-day. 

That's for victory. Ah, no knells 
For the many swept away — 

Hundreds — thousands ! Let us weep, 

We, who need not — just to keep 

Reason steady in my brain 

Till the morning comes again ; 

Till the third dread morning tell 

"VMio they were that fought a,nd fell 
By the Alma River. 

Come, we '11 laj' us down, my child; 

Poor the bed is,- -poor and hard ; 
Yet thy father, far exiled. 

Sleeps upon the open sward, 
Dreaming of us two at home : 

Or beneath the starry dome 
Digs out trenches in the dark, 
AMiere he buries — Willie, mark ! — 
Where he buries those who died 
Fighting bravely at his side 

By the Alma River. 

Willie, Willie, go to sleep ; 

God will keejD us, my boy ; 
He will make the dull hours creep 
Faster, and send news of joy, 
When I need not shrink to meet 
Those dread placards in the street. 
Which for weeks will ghastly stare 
In some eyes — Child, say thy prayer 
Once again, — a different one, — 
Say, " O God, thy will be done 

By the Alma River." 

DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK. 



GQy Beautiful, ©hild. 



r:>EAUTIFUL child ! by thy mother's knee, 
^^ In the golden future what wilt thou be ? 
Angel or demon, or god sublime, 
Upas of evil, or flower of time ? ' 



Dashing, flashing, madly down. 
Weaving of horror a fairy crown ; 

Or, gliding on in a shining track. 

Like the kingly sun that ne'er looks back ? 

Daintiest dreamer that ever smiled ! 

WTiat wilt thou be, my beautiful child ? 

Beautiful child ! in my garden bowers, 
Friend of the butterflies, birds, and flowers; 
Crystal and pure as the sparkling stream. 
Goodness and truth in thy features beam. 
Brighter, whiter soul than thine 
Never was seen in a mortal shrine. 
My heart thou hast gladdened two sweet years 
With rainbows of hope suffused my tears ; 
"Wherever thy sunny smile doth fall, 
The glory of God beams over all. 

Beautiful child ! to thy look is given 
A purity less of earth than heaven. 
With" thy tell-tale eyes and prattling tongue, 
I \\dsh thou couldst ever thus be young. 

Tripping, skipping, humming bird. 

Everywhere thy voice is heard ; 
In the garden nooks thou oft art found, 
With flowers thy bosom and neck around ; 
And w^hen at thy prayers, with figure quaint. 
Oh ! how I love thee, my infant saint ! 



Beautiful child ! what thy fate shall be 
Is wisely hidden, perchance, from me. 
A fallen star thou may'st leave my side, 
And sorrow and shame may thee betide : 
Shivering, quivering, through the street. 
Wretched, down-trampled, cursed and beat; 
Ashamed to live, and afraid to die, 
No home, no friend, and a frowning sky. 
Merciful Father ! my brain grows wild ; 
Good angels guard my beautiful child ! 

Beautiful child ! thou may'st soar above, 
A warbling cherub of joy and love ; 
A wave on eternity's mighty sea; 
A blossom on life's immortal tree ; 
Flowering, towering, evermore, 
'Mid vernal airs of the golden shore. 
Oh ! as I gaze on thy sinless bloom. 
And thy radiant face that laughs at gloom, 
I pray God keep thee thus undeflleil ; 
I pray Heaven bless my beautiful child. 



W. A. H. S IGOU RNEY, 



163 




P N N I B . 




<^-«-V 



-%-^ 



'YE a sweet little pet ; she is up with the lark, 
And at eve she's asleep when the valleys are dark, 
And she chatters and dances the blessed day long, 
Now laughing in gladness, now singing a song. 
She never is silent; the whole summer day 
She is off on the green with the blossoms at play; 
Now seeking a buttercup, plucking a rose. 
Or laughing aloud at the thistle she blows. 

She never is still ; now at some merry elf 

You'll smile as you watch her, in spite of yourself; 

You may chide her in vain, for those eyes, full of fun. 

Are smiling in mirth at the mischief she's done; 

And whatever you do, that same thing, without doubt. 

Must the mischievous Annie be busied about ; 

She's as brown as a nut, but a beauty to me. 

And there's nothing her keen little eyes cannot see. 

She dances and sings, and has many sweet airs ; 
And to infant accomplishments adding her prayers, 
I have told everything that the darling can do. 
For 'twas only last summer her years numbered two. 
She's the picture of health, and a southern-born thing 
Just as ready to weep as she's ready to sing. 
And I fain would be foe to the lip that hath smiled 
At this wee bit of song of the dear little child. 



I 




164 



_C-v^**<^;5^ 



CHILDHOOD. 



> 



EFGRE life's sweetest mysteiy still 
The heart in reverence kneels ; 
The wonder of the primal birth 
The latest mother feels. 

We need love's tender lessons taught 

As only weakness can ; 
God has his small interpreters; 

The child must teach the man. 

^Ye wander wide through evil years, 

Our eyes of faith grow dim ; 
But he is freshest from His hands 

And nearest unto Him ! 



And haply, pleading long with Him 
For sin-sick hearts and cold, 

The angles of our childhood still 
The Father's face behold. 

Of such the kingdom ! Teach thus tjs, 

Oh Master most divine. 
To feel the deep significance 

Of these wise words of thine ! 

The haughty feet of power shall fail 
AVhere meekness surely goes ; 

No cunning find the key of hea?-^, 
No strength its gates unclose. 




Alone to guilelessness and love 
Those gates shall open fall ; 

The mind o:£ pride is nothingness, 
The child-like heart is all. 



JOHN G. WHITTIElt. 




^= Jhe Comfort of a Child. ^ 



^^ALL not that man wretched, who, whatever el:?e he suffers as to pain inflicted, 
1^ pleasure denied, has a child for wdiom he hopes and on whom he dotes. Poverty 
may grind him to the dust, obscurity may cast its darkest mantle over him, the song 
of the gay may be far from his own dwelling, his face may be unknown to his neigh- 
bors, and his voice may be unheeded by those among whom he dwells — even pain 
may rack his joints, and sleep flee from his pillow; but he has a gem with which he 
would not part for wealth defying computation, for fame filling a world's ear, for the 
luxury of the hightest health, or for the sweetest sleep that ever sat upon a mortal eye. 



S. T. COLEltlDGE. 



.>o^^Oo<<o 



oifR Dear o/us. 




G 



CD gives us ministers of love, 

"Which wc reg:u-(l not being near; 
Death takes them from us, then we feel 
That iingels have been with us here i 

165 




; AM KS A L D R I CH. 



■Sr^ 






BETSEY'S got another baby ! 
Charming, precious little type ! 
Grandma says — and she knows surely- 

That you never saw its like. 
Isn't it a beaming beauty, 

Lying there so sweet and snug ? 
Mrs. Jones, pray stop your scandal, 
Darling's nose is not a pug ! 

Some one says 'tis Pa all over, 

Whereat Pa turns rather red, 
And, to scan his features, quickly 

To the looking-glass has fled ; 
But recovers his composure, 

AVhen he hears the nurse's story. 
Who admits that of all babies 

This indeed's the crowning glory ! 

Aunt Lucretia says she guesses — 

Says, indeed, she knows it, pos. 
That 't will prove to be a greater 

Man than e'er its father was ; 
Pro^dng thus the modern thesis 

Held by reverend doctors sage, 
That in babies, as in wisdom, 

This is a "progressive" age. 

Uncle Henry looks and wonders 

At so great a prodigy ; 
Close and closer still he presses 

Thinking something brave to see. 
Up they hold the babe before him, 

While they gather in a ring. 
But, alas ! the staggered uncle 

Vainly tries his praise to sing. 

As he stares, the lovely infant. 

Nestling by its mother's side. 
Opes its little mouth, and singing. 

Gurgles forth a milky tide. 
Uncle tries to hide his blushes, 

Looks about to find his hat. 
Stumbles blindly o'er the cradle. 

And upsets the startled cat. 



Why, Oh why such awkward blunders ? 

Better far have stayed away, 
Nor have thrust yourself where woman 

Holds an undisputed sway ; 
Do you think that now they'll name it, 

As they mean to, after you ? 
W^retched mortal ! let me answer. 

You're deluded if you do ! 

Eound about the noisy women 

Pass the helpless stranger now. 
Raptured with each nascent feature, 

Chin and mouth, and eye and brow ; 
And for this young bud of promise 

All neglect the rose in bloom, 
Eldest'born, who, quite forgotten, 

Pouts within her lonely room. 

Sound the stage-horn! ring the cow-bell! 

That the waiting world may know ; 
Pubhsh it through all our borders. 

Even unto Mexico. 
Seize your pen, Oh dreaming poet ! 

And in numbers smooth as may be. 
Spread afar the joyful tidings, 

Betsey's got another baby ! 

— K NICKERBOCKER. 



^^m^m^mm 



" Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmity. 

WEARILY from stair to stair, 
Slowly climb the little feet. 
Dress awry and tangled hair, 
Pouting lips as berries sweet. 

" I'se so tired, don't 'ou see ? 

Dess I never '11 det up-stairs. 
Dranpa, won't 'ou tarry me. 

So as I tan say my prayers ?" 



166 



LITTLENESS, 



Light the burden that I bore, 
Nestling softly on my breast ; 

Arms that hugged me o'er and o'er, 
Tiny form at perfect rest. 



And the midget softly said, 
"Ain't you glad I'se small? 

When I have to go to bed, 
'Ou tan always tarry me." 



'Ou see, 



Glad I clasped the maiden close, 
Warm the beating of my heart; 

Love which every parent knows, 
Made the happy tear-drops start. 

Ah ! I thought my weary feet, 
Toiling painfully life's stair, 

Often find it passing sweet 

When I meet my Father there. 



irt- 



Weak and sinful, poor and blind. 
Glad I seek his sheltering arm; 

Joyful welcome there I find, 
Calm security from harm. 

Whispering prattle faint and low. 

In his ever open ear. 
Words whose meaning I scarce know, 

Yet he loves to pause and hear. 

Does there ever o'er Him fall 

That glad thrill of holy glee- 
Gladness that I am so small 
He can safely carry me ? 



M. E. W INS LOW, 



'cz/Ko 



a> 



P^ 






c a CWM fflttfittft Siekic^M, 



'LEEP breathes at last from out thee, 
My little patient boy ; 
And balmy rest about thee 
Smooths off the day's annoy. 

I sit me down, and think 
Of all thy winning ways ; 
Yet almost wish, with sudden shrink, 
That I had less to praise. 

Thy sidelong pillowed meekness ; 

Thy thanks to all that aid ; 
Thy heart, in pain and weakness, 
Of fancied faults afraid ; 

The little trembling hand 
That wipes thy quiet tears, — 
These, these are things that may demand 
Dread memories for years. 

Sorrows I've had, severe ones, 

I will not think of now ; 
And calmly, midst my dear ones. 
Helve wasted with dry brow ; 
But when thy fingers press 
And pat my stooping head, 
I cannot bear the gentleness, — 
The tears are in their bed. 



Ah, first-born of thy mother. 

When life and hope were new ; 
Kind playmate of thy brother. 
Thy sister, father too ; 

My light where'er I go ; 
My bird, when prison-bound ; 
My hand-in-hand companion — No, 

My prayers shall hold thee round. 

To say, "He has departed" — 

" His voice" — " his face" — is gone, 
To feel impatient-hearted. 
Yet feel we must bear on, — 

Ah, I could not endure 
To whisper of such woe, 
Unless I felt this sleep insure 
That it will not be so. 

Yes, still he's fixed, and sleeping! 

Tliis silence too the while, — 
Its very hush and creeping 
Seem whispering us a smile ; 
Something di\'ine and dim 
Seems going by one's ear, 
Like parting wings of cherubim, 

WTio say, " We've linished here." 

I.EIGH HUNT, 



167 







told nie all about it, 
^j2 Told me so I couldn't doubt it, 
How she danced — m}^ grandma danced — 

Long ago. 
How she held her pretty head. 
How her dainty skirt she spread, 
How she turned her little toes — 
Smihng little human rose ! — 
Long ago. 

Grandma's hair was bright and sunny ; 
Dimpled cheeks, too — ah, how funny 1 
Eeally quite a pretty girl, 

Long ago. 
Bless her ! why she wears a cap, 
Grandma does, and takes a nap 
Every single day; and yet 
Grandma danced the minuet 

Long ago. 

Now she sits there, rocking, rocking, 
Mways knitting grandpa's stocking — 
(Every girl was taught to knit 

Long ago). 
Yet her figure is so neat. 
And her way so staid and sweet, 
I can almost see her now 
Bending to her partner's bow, 

Long ago. 

Grandma says our modern jumping, 
Hopping, rushing, whirhng, bumping, 
Would have shocked the gentle folk 
Long ago. 
No — they moved with stately grace, 
Ever}i;hing in jDroper place, 
Gliding slowly forward, then 
Slowly courtesying back again, 
; Long ago. 

Modern ways are quite alarming, 
Grandma says; but boys were charming — • 
Girls and boys I mean, of course — 
Long ago. 
Bravely modest, grandly shy — 
What if all of us should try 



Just to feel hke those who met 
In the graceful minuet 
Long ago ? 

With the minuet in fashion, 
^Vho could fly into a passion ? 
All would wear the calm they wore 

Long ago. 
In time to come, if I perchance 
Should tell my grandchild of our dance, 
I should really like to say, 
*' We did it, dear, in some such way 

Long ago. 

MRS. MARY M . DODGE, 



WHO WOULD BE A BOY AGAIN? 

IN company one evening, when the 
song, " Would I were a boy again,'' 
was called for, a gray-headed " old boy" 
^Tiscoursed thus : 

A boy again ! Who would be a boy 
again, if he could? To have measles, 
itch, and mumps; to get licked by bigger 
boys and scolded by older brothers; to 
stub toes; to slip up on the ice; to do 
chores; to get your ears boxed; to get 
whaled by a thick-headed schoolmaster; 
to be made to stand up as the dunce for 
the amusement of the whole school, and 
be told how miserable, weak, and stupid 
you were when you were born, and to 
have the master ask you what would have 
become of you at that interesting time in 
life if your parents had not been so patient 
with and so kind to you ; to eat at the 
second table when company comes ; to set 
out cabbage plants and thin corn because 
you are little, and consequently it wouldn't 
make your back ache so much ; to be 
made to go to school when you don't want 



168 



WHO WOULD BE A BOY AGAIN. 



to ; to lose your marbles ; to have your 
sled broken ; to get hit in the eyes with 
frozen apples and soggy snow balls; to 
cut your finger; to lose your knife; to 
have a hole in your only pair of pants 
when your pretty cousin from the city 
comes to see you ; to be called a coward 
at school if you don^t fight ; to be whaled 
at home if you do fight ; to be struck after 
a little girl and dare not tell her ; to have 
a boy too big for you to lick to tell you 
that your sweetheart squints ; to have 
your sweetheart cut you dead and affiliate 
with that boy John Smith, whom you 
hate particularly, because he set your 
nose out of joint the week before ; to be 
made to go to bed when you know you 
ain't a bit sleepy ; to have no fire-crackers 
on the Fourth of July, no skates on Christ- 



mas ; to want a piece of bread and butter 
with honey and get your ears pulled ; to 
be kept from the circus when it comes to 
town, and when all other boys go ; to get 
pounded for stealing roasting ears ; to get 
run by bull-dogs for trying to nip water- 
melons; to have the canker rash, cate- 
chism, stone bruises ; to be called up to 
kiss old women that visit your mother ; to 
be scolded because you like Maggie Love 
better than your own sister; to be told 
of a scorching time little boys will have 
who tell lies, and are not like George 
Washington; to catch your big brother 
kissing the pretty school ma'am on the 
sly, and wish you were big so you could 
kiss her too, and — and — why who'd he a 
hoy again f 




MY BOY. 





LITTLE face, little, loved, tender face, 
Set, like a saint's, in curls for aureole — 
Little, loved face, in which the clear child soul 
Is mirror'd with a changeful, perfect grace ; 
Where sudden ripples of light laughter chase 

The dimples round the dainty mouth ; where roll 

Cloud shadows of great questionings, and dole 
For human ills half realized, where race, 
In restless sequence, gloom, gleam, shade and shine— 

A thousand feelings, sorrow, love and joy, 
A thousand thoughts, of folly half divine, 

And bold imaginings, and fancies coy. 

And reasonings dream-like ! — 

O my boy, my boy. 
How I do love that little face of thine ! 



f^M 




169 



In many a mother's heart these pathetic words, all the more tender and touching frora the 
quaint Scotch brogue, ^ill awaken an echo, that comes again and again, and never entirely 
dies away, assuring the sorrowing heart that the echo itself comes from the far-aw^ay land. 



P 




UT in the drawer — my heart can bear nae mair ; 
Row up the paper wi' my dawtj^'s hair; 
I ken, I ken, it but renews my waes — 
I ken I sudna' touch my lassie's claes ; 
But when the past comes crowdin' through my brain 
I canna let her bits o' things alane. 
Sin' e'er she dee'd I wauken wi' a start, 
An' O, there's something saer comes ower my heart ; - 

Then thochts like lightnin' minds me o' her death, M^ 

An' for a while I scarce can draw my breath. ^ 

I dream'd a dream before she took her bed, 
An' O ! wae's me, it's been ower truly read ; 
An' whan the cock began to craw at night, 
I bodit aye that something wasna' richt ; 
An' whan the window shook frae head to fit, 
I thocht my very" heart lap aff the bit. 
Nae mair 'hint the door I'll see her keek, 
Nae mair to mine she'll lay her dimpled cheek ! 
An' never mair me roun' the neck she'll tak', 
Nor dook her bonnie headie in my lap ! 
Weel she was likit by ilk neebor wean, 
An' unco blythe they keepit my hearth-stane : 
The dorty anes she'd pleasure sae auldfarran — 
Wad let them see the ^' man that broke the barn'* 
Wad mak' doo's dookits wi' her fingers sma', 
An' raise a lauch that wad delight them a' ; 
Syne let them see, upon the auld kist head, 
Hoo "Robie Salmon selt his gingerbread ;" 
Wad cock her head and gie sick pawkie looks — 
Her tongueie gaed as it wad clippit cloots, 
But when my wee drap tea I set agaun. 
My wee bit lassie sune was at my han'; 
A drappie i' the saucer aye she gat. 
An' syne contentit at my fit she sat. 
But noo when I set down I scarce break bread, 
I scarce can lift the saucer to my head. 
Ah ! never mair at nippit cakes I'll growl, 
Nor catch her fingers i' the sugar bowl ! 
I ken, I ken she's in a bright warl' noo, 
Among the flowers that death can never poo 
I ken, O ! v^eel I hen, w^e're born to part — 
But if I didna greet I'd break my heart !" 

170 








A R E N T S 

should remem- 
ber that the 
children of to- 
day, and espe- 
cially t h o s ^ 
born in cities, 
are peculiarly 
exposed to temptation. The opportu-- 
nities which came to many of us from the 
old home life in'the country, with its crisp 
atmosphere of Puritan goverment, its hab- 
its of honesty and honorable industry, its 
conservative customs, and its simple rev- 
erent faith in God, all centered around on<»- 
spot, all hallowing one locality, will not 
come to our children, because the causes 
and incentives which operated to establish 
them in us, do not operate to establish 
them in the rising generation. A boyhood 
passed in the city is a far different thing 
from one passed in the country. The 
sights and sounds and surroundings of 
metropolitan life force the gro\\i:h of the 
young, and at a time, too, when the physical 
and sensuous preponderate in the nature. 
These beget a looseness of thought and 
freedom of conduct before the judgement 
is sufficiently matured by experience to 
check them. These educate one into neces- 
sities faster than individual effort can earn 
the means of supplying them ; and foster 
that worst of all habits of the young man 
— eating, and wearing, and spending what 
he has not earned. We do not say, pa- 
rents, that these evil tendencies cannot be 
lessened or wholly counterbalanced, but 
we do say that they call for the utmost 
eflbrt on your pa»'t, and make anxiety rea- 
sonable. They may ac^hieve what the 
world calls success, although even this will 
be hazarded. But they will never lead 



that life of piety and holiness which can 
alone commend them in their character 
and conduct to the favor of God They 
will live and labor as those whose lives 
end at the grave. The line of pure sel- 
fishness will circumscribe their lives, and 
shame and confusion of face will cover 
them when they appear to render their 
account before God. 

REV. W. H. H.MURRAY. 




BE GENTLE. 




E ever gentle with the children 
God has given you; watch 
over them constantly; reprove 
them earnestly, but not in anger. In the 
forcible language of Scripture, '^ Be not 
bitter against them.'^ I once heard a kind 
father say : " Yes, they are good boys ; I 
talk to them very much, but do not like 
to beat my children — the world will beat 
them." It was a beautiful thought, though 
not elegantly expressed. Yes: there is 
not one child in the circle round the table, 
healthful and happy as they look now, on 
Avhose head, if long enough spared, the 
storm will not beat. Adversity may with- 
er them, sickness may fade, a cold world 
may frown on them, but amidst all let 
memory carry them back to home where 
the law of kindness reigned, where the 
mother's reproving eye was moistened with 
a tear, and the father frowned " more in 
sorrow than in anger." 



171 



ELIHU BURRITT. 



Jhe Pother to her Child. 



r 



^ 





HEY tell me thou art come from a far world, 
Babe of my bosom ! that these little arms, 
Whose restlessness is like the spread of wings, 
Move with the memory of flights scarce o'er — 
That through these fringed lids we see the soul 
Steep'd in the blue of its remember'd home ; 
And while thou sleep'st come messengers, they say, 
Whispering to thee — and 'tis then I see 

Upon thy baby lips that smile of heaven. . 

And what is thy far errand, my fair child ? 

Why away, wandering from a home of bliss. 

To find thy way through darkness home again ? 

Wert thou an untried dweller in the sky ? 

Is there, betwixt the cherub that thou wert, 

The cherub and the angel thou mayst be, 

A life's probation in this sadder world ? 

Art thou with memory of two things only, 

Music and light, left upon earth astray 

And, by the watchers at the gate of heaven^ 

Look'd for Avith fear and trembling ? 

God ! who gavest 

Into my guiding hand this wanderer, 

To lead her through a world whose darkling paths 

I tread with steps so faltering — leave not me 

To bring her to the gates of heaven, alone ! 

I feel my feebleness. Let these stay on — 

The angels who now visit her in dreams ! 

Bid them be near her pillow till in death 

The closed eyes look upon Thy face once more ! 

And let the light and music, which the world 

Borrows of heaven, and which her infant sense 

Hails with sweet recognition, be to her 

A voice to call her upward, and a lamp 

To lead her steps unto Thee ! 



p. WILLIS; 







i 



XXXXXXX 



xxxxxxx 



xxxxxxxxxxXxxxxxxxxxxXxxxXXxxxx 



He that spareth his rod hateth his sou ; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes, 

BIBLE, 

172 




KITTIE IS GONE^I 





y ^ ITTIE 



IS gone. 
Where? To hea- 
ven. An angel 
came, and took 
5 her away. She 
was a lovely 
~l child, gentle as 
2 a lamb; the pet of 
1 the whole family; 
^"^ the youngest of 
them all. But she 
could not stay with us any longer. * * * * 
If a little voice sweeter and more musical 
than others were heard, I knew Kittie was 
near. If my study door opened so gently 
and slily that no sound could be heard, I 
knew Kittie was coming. If after an 
hour's quiet play, a little shadow passed me, 
and the door opened and shut as no one 
else could open and shut it, " so as not to 
disturb papa,'' I knew Kittie was going. 
When, in the midst of my composing, I 
heard a gentle voice saying, " Papa, may I 
stay with you a little while? I will be 
very still ;" I did not need to look off my 
work to assure me that it was my little 
lamb. You staid with me too long, Kittie 
dear, to leave me so suddenly, and you are 
too still now. You became my little assist- 
ant, my home angel, my youngest and 
sweetest singing bird, and I miss the little 
voice that I have heard in an adjoining 
room, catching up and echoing little snatches 
of melody as they were being composed. 
I miss those soft and sweet kisses. I miss 
the little hand that was always first to be 
placed on my forehead to " drive away the 
pain.'' I miss the sound of those little feet 
upon the stairs. * * * * j j^jgg y^^^ 
in the garden. I miss you everywhere, but 
I will try not to miss you in heaven. 
" Papa, if we are good, will an angel truly 
come and take us to heaven when we die ?" 

1 



When the question was asked, how littlf 
did I think the angel was so near ! But he 
did truly come, and the sweetest flower waa 
transplanted to a more genial clime. "I 
do wish papa would come." Wait a little 
while, Kittie, and papa will come. The 
journey is not long. He will soon be Home. 
William B. Beadbuet. 



BENEFIT OF CHILDREN. 
AM fond of children. I think them the 
poetry of the world, the fresh flowers 
of our hearths and homes ; little con- 
jurors with their " natural magic," 
evoking by their spells what delights and 
enriches all ranks, and equalizes the differ- 
ent classes of society. Often as they bring 
with them anxieties and cares, and live to 
occasion sorrow and grief, we should get 
on very badly without them. Only think, 
if there was never anything any^vhere to 
be seen, but great grown-up men and 
women ! How we should long for the 
sight of a little child ! Every infant comes 
into the world like a delegated prophet, the 
harbinger and herald of good tidings, whose 
office it is " to turn the hearts of the fathers 
to the children," and to draw "the dis- 
obedient to the wisdom of the just." A 
child softens and purifies the heart, warm- 
ing and melting it by its gentle presence ; 
it enriches the soul by new feeling, and 
awakens within it what is favorable to virtue. 
It is a beam of light, a fountain of love, 
a teacher whose lessons few can resist. In- 
fants recall us from much that eugendere 
and encourages selfishness, that freezes the 
affections, roughens the manners, indurates 
the heart : they brighten the home, deepen 
love, invigorate exertion, infuse courage, and 
vivify and sustain the charities of life. It 
would be a terrible world, I do think, if it 
was not embellished by little children ! 



CHOMAd BlNHET. 



73 



AGAINST BOYS. 




ERTAIN feeble poetasters are 
always mourning that they are 
no longer in the Classical or 
Commercial Seminary of their 
younger days, but I believe 
that there are few honest men 
who do not look back upon their school-days 
with a shudder. I was not a very bad boy 
myself, I believe, but the comparison of my 
Now with my Then is certainly not odious. I 
can now meet a cat without wishing to kill it; 
I can behold two dogs without yearning to 
set them by the ears; I can listen to the 
twitter of a hedge-sparrow without longing 
for a horse-pistol ; I can pass in the street 
an individual smaller than myself without 
experiencing an uncontrollable desire to 
snatch off his cap, and throw it over the 
wall. When I go to church, I take a 
church-service in my hand, and not a novel 
of similar external appearance; I do not 
distend my pockets Avith filberts purloined 
from my host's dinner-table; I do not 
smoke bits of cane until I am sick ; I do 
not think it ungentlemanly to ride in a 'bus ; 
I am no longer irresistibly attracted to any 
barrow full of strange delicacies, such as 
Albert rock or Alicam-pane, and if I were, 
the fruit of all others I should leave 
untouched would be exposed slices of cocoa- 
nut. Upon the whole, in short, I flatter 
myself that my relations with society are 
improved since I was that dreadful being — 
a boy. If all the grown-up people in the 
Tv^orld should suddenly fail, what a frightful 
thing would society become reconstructed 
by boys ! — Chambers' JournaL 



A WESTIOM. 




HEN yet was ever found a mother 
Who'd give her booby for another ? 

John Gay. 



©If IF If ©IB Ii3®^njii3gfIS), 

! All aboard ! A traveler 
Sets sail for babyland ■ 
Before my eyes there comes a blur; 
But still I kiss my hand, 
And try to smile as off he goes, 

My bonny, winsome boy ! 
Yes, bon voyage ! God only knows 
How much I wish thee joy. 

Oh ! tell me, have you heard of him? 

He wore a sailor's hat 
All silver-corded round the brim, 

And — stranger e'en than that — 
A wondrous suit of navy blue, 

With pocket deep and wide ; 
Oh ! tell me, sailor, tell me true, 

How fares he on the tide ? 

We've now no baby in the house; 

'Twas but this very morn 
He doffed his dainty, 'broidered blouse^ 

With skirts of snowy lawn ; 
And shook a mass of silken curls • 

From off his sunny brow ; 
They fretted him — " so like a girl's," 

Mamma can have them now. 

He owned a brand-new pocket-book, 

But that he could not find; 
A knife and string was all he took, 

What did he leave behind ? 
A heap of blocks with letters gay. 

And here and there a toy ; 
I cannot pick them up to-day, 

My heart is with my boy. 

Ho ! Ship ahoy ! At boyhood.'s town 

Cast anchor strong and deep, 
What tears upon this little gown, 

Left for mamma to keep ? 
Weep not, but smile ; for through the air 

A merry message rings — 
" Just sell it to the rag man there ; 

I've done with baby things !" 

A BETTER ^^AY, 
'E should gain our object better in the 
discipline of children, if, instead of 
finding fault with an action, we set our- 
selves to produce a better state of feeling 
without noticins: the action. 



Maey p. Wabh 



174 



WHAT'S A BOY LIKE? 







Hf$n|0^|fifo? 



T" IKE a wasp, like a sprite, 
-*— ^ Like a goose, like an eel, 
Like a top, like a kite. 

Like an owl, like a wheel, 
Like the wind, like a snail. 
Like a knife, like a crow, 
Like a thorn, like a flail. 
Like a hawk, like a doe. 

Like the sea, like a weed. 

Like a watch, like the sun, 
Like a cloud, like a seed, 

Like a book, like a gun, 
Like a smile, like a tree, 

Like a lamb, like the moo% 
Like a bud, like a bee, 

-Like a burr, like a tune. 

Like a colt, like a whip. 

Like a mouse, like a mill, 
Like a bell, like a ship. 

Like a jay, like a rill, 
Like a shower, like a cat, 

Like a frog, like a toy. 
Like a ball, like a bat. 

Most of all — like a boy. 

George Cooper. 



SWINGING on a birch tree 
To a sleepy tune, 
Hummed by all the breezes 

In the month of June I 
Little leaves a-flutter 

Sound like dancing drops 
Of a brook on pebbles — 
Song that never stops. 

Up and down we see-saw; 

Up into the sky ; 
How it opens on us, 

Like a wide blue eye I 
You and I are sailors 

Rocking on a mast ; 
And the world's our vessel: 

Ho ! she sails so fast I 

Blue, blue sea around us; 

Not a ship in sight ; 
They will hang out lanterns 

When they i^ass to-night. 
We with ours will follow 

Through the midnight deep; 
Not a thought of danger, 

Though the crew's asleep. 

Oh, how still the air is ! 

There an oriole flew ; 
What a jolly whistle ! 

He's a sailor, too. 
Yonder is his hammock 

In the elm-top high ; 
One more ballad, messmate; 

Sing it as you fly ! 

Up and down we see-saw: 

Down into the grass. 
Scented fern and rose-buds, 

All a woven mass. 
That's the sort of carpet 

Fitted for our feet; 
Tapestry nor velvet 

Is so rich and neat. 

Swinging on a birch tre«I 

This is summer joy, 
Fun for all vacation — 

Don't you think so, boy? 
Up and down to see-saw, 

Merry and at ease, 

Careless as a brook is. 

Idle as the breeze. 

Lucr Li ROOM. 




THE KIGHTS OF fiBILBHBII. 



HE child has a 
right to ask ques- 
tions and to be 
fairly answered ; 
not to be snub- 
bed as if he were 
guilty of an im- 
pertinence, nor ignored as though his desire 
for information were of no consequence, 
tior misled as if it did not signify w^hether 
true or false impressions were made upon 
his mind. 

The child has a right to his individuality, 
to be himself and no other; to maintain 
against the world the divine fact for which 
he stands. And before this fact father, 
mother, instructor should stand reverently ; 
seeking rather to understand and interpret 
its significance than to wrest it from its 
original purpose. It is not necessarily to 
be inscribed with the family name, nor 
written over with family traditions. Nature 
ilelights in surprise and wdll not guarantee 
that the children of her poets shall sing, 
nor that every Quaker baby shall take 
kindly to drab color, or have an inherent 
longing for a scoop bonnet or a broad- 
brimmed hat. 

In the very naming of a child his indi- 
viduality should be recognized. He should 
not be invested with the cast-off cognomen 
of some dead ancestor or historical celebrity, 
a name musty as the grave-clothes of the 
original wearer — dolefully redolent of old 
associations — a ghostly index-finger forever 
pointing to the past. Let it be something 
fresh 5 a new name standing for a new fact, 
the suggestion of a history yet to be written, 
a prophecy to be fulfilled. The ass was 
well enough clothed in his own russet ; but 
when he would put on the skin of the lion, 
every attribute became contemptible. Com- 
monplace people slip easily through the 

17 



world; but when we would find them 
heralded by great names, we resent the 
incongruity, and insist upon making them 
less than they are. George Washington 
selling peanuts, Julius Csesar as a bootblack, 
and Yirgil a vender of old clothes, make 
but a sorry figure. 

We are indebted to our children for con- 
stant incentives to noble living ; for the per- 
petual reminder that we do not live to our- 
selves alone ; for their sakes we are admon- 
ished to put from us the debasing appetite, 
the unworthy impulse ; to gather into our 
lives every noble and heroic quality, every 
tender and attractive grace. 

We owe them gratitude for the dark 
hours which their presence has brightened, 
for the helplessness and dependence which 
have won us from ourselves ; for the faith 
and trust which it is evermore their mission 
to renew ; for their kisses on cheeks wet 
with tears, and on brows that but for that 
caressing had furrowed into frowns. — lAtr 
teWs Living Age, 



PAYIN& HER WAY. 

HAT has my darling been doing to-day, 
To pay for her washing and mending ? 
How can she manage to keep out of debt 
For so much caressing and tending ? 
How can I wait till the years shall have flown, 

And the hands have grown larger and stronger? 
Who will be able the interest to pay | 

If the debt runs many years longer ? 

Dear little feet I how they fly to my side I 

"V\Tiite arms my neck are caressing, 
Sweetest of kisses are laid on my cheek, 

Fair head my shoulder is pressing. 
Nothing at all from my darling is due, 

From evil may angels defend her — 
The debt is discharged as fast as 'tis made, 

For love ia a legal tender I 

Ki CE W00DLAir», 

6 





OUR UAMBS. 



I LOVED them so 
That when the Elder Shepherd of the fold 
Came covered with the storm, and pale and cold' 
And begged for one of my sweet lambs to hold, 

I bade Him go. 

He claimed the pet — 
A little fondling thing that to my breast 
Clung always, either in quiet or unrest — 
I thought of all my lambs I loved him best, 

And yet — and yet — 

I laid him down 
In those white shrouded arms, with bitter tears; 
For some voice told me that in after years, 
He should know naught of passion, grief or fears 

As I had known. 

And yet again 
That Elder Shepherd came. My heart grew faint. 
He claimed another lamb, with sadder plaint. 
Another ! She who, gentle as a saint, 

Ne'er gave me pain. 

Aghast, I turned away. 
There sat she, lovely as an angel's dream, 
Her golden locks with sunlight all agleam, 
Her holy eyes with heaven in their beam. 

I knelt to pray, 

''Is it Thy will? 
My Father, say, must this pet lamb be given ? 
Oh I Thou hast many such in heaven." 
A-iid a soft voice said : " Nobly hast thou striven, 

But — peace, be still." 

Oh I how T wept, 
ind clasped her to my bosom, with a wild 
A.nd yearning love — my lamb, my pleasant child, 
der, too, I gave. The little angel smiled, 

And slept. 



"Go! go!" I cried: 
For once again that Shepherd laid His hand 
Upon the noblest of our household band. 
Like a pale spectre, there He took His stand. 

Close to his side. 

And yet how wondrous sweet 
The look with which He heard my passionate cry 
** Touch not my lamb ; for him, oh ! let me die I* 
" A little while," He said, with smile and sigh, 

" Again to meet." 

Hopeless I fell ; 
And when I rose, the light had burned so low. 
So faint, I could not see my darling go : 
He had not bidden me farewell, but, oh I 

I felt farewell. 

More deeply far 
Than if my arms had compassed that slight frame, 
Though could I but have heard him call my name — ■ 
" Dear Mother !" — but in heaven 'twill bethesame. 

There burns my star 1 

He will not take 
Another lamb, I thought, for only one 
Of the dear fold is spared, to be my sun, 
My guide, my mourner when this life is done. 

My heart would break. 

Oh ! with what thrill 
I heard Him enter ; but I did not know 
(For it was dark) that He had robbed me so, 
The idol of my soul- 

heart ! be still I 



-he could not go — 



Came morning, can I tell 
How this poor frame its sorrowful tenant kept? 
For waking, tears were mine ; I, sleej)ing, wept, 
And days, months, years, that weary vigil kept. 

Alas! "Farewell." 

How often it is said ! 
I sit and think, and wonder, too, sometime, 
How it will seem, when, in that happier dim© 
It never will ring out like funeral chime 

Over the dead. 

No tears ! no tears ! 
Will there a day come that I shall not weep? 
For I bedew my pillow in my sleep. 
Yes, yes ; thank God ! no grief that clime shall keep. 

No weary years. 



12 



177 



ttTHl WI 



^^-Q 




BY.4^ 







HE droops like a dew-dropping lily, 

'' Whisht thee, boy, whisht thee, boy Willie ! 

Whisht, whisht o' thy wailing, whisht thee, boy Willie!" 

The sun comes up from the lea, 

As he who will never come more 

Came up that first day to her door, . • 

When the ship furled her sails by the shore, 

And the spring leaves were green on the tree. 

But she droops like a dew-dropping lily, 

" Whisht thee, boy, whisht thee, boy W^illie ! 

Whisht, whisht o^ thy wailing, whisht thee, boy Willie V* 

The sun goes down in the sea, 

As he who will never go more. 

Went down that last day from her door, 

When the ship set her sails from the shore, 

And the dead leaves were sere on the tree. 

But she droops like a dew-dropping lily, * 

" Whisht thee, boy, whisht thee, boy Yv^illie ! 

Whisht, whisht o' thy wailing, whisht thee, boy Willie P 

The year comes glad o'er the lea. 

As he who will never come more, 

Never, ah never ! 

Came up that first day to her door. 

When the ship furled her sails by the shore, 

And the spring leaves were green on the tree. 

Never, ah never ! 

He who will come again, never ! 

But she droops like a dew-dropping lily, 

" Whisht thee, boy, whisht thee, boy Willie !" 

Whisht, whisht o' thy wailing, whisht thee, boy Willie !" 

The year goes sad to the sea. 
As he who will never go more 
For ever went down from her door. 
Ever, for ever ! 

When the ship set her sails by the shore, 
And the dead leaves were sere on the tree. 
Ever, for ever ! 

For ever went down from her door. 

178 




THE WIDOWS LULLABY, 





But she droops like a dew-dropping lily, 

'^ Whisht thee, boy, whisht thee, boy Willie ! 

Whisht, whisht o' thy wailing, whisht thee, boy Willie!" 

A gun, and a flash, and a gun, 
The ship lies again where she lay ! 
High and low, low and high in the sun, 
There's a boat, a boat on the bay ! 
High and low, low and high, in the sun, 
All as she saw it that day. 
When he came who shall never come more. 
And the ship furled her sails by the shore. 

But she droops like a dew-dropping lily, 

*' Whisht thee, boy, whisht thee, boy Willie ! 

Whisht, whisht o' thy wailing, whisht thee, boy Willie T 

All as she saw it that day, 

With a gun, and a flash, and a gun, 

The ship lies again where she lay. 

And they run, and they ride, and they run. 

Merry, merry, merry, down the merry highway; 

To the boat high and low in the sun. 

Nearer and nearer she hears the rolling drum. 

Clearer and clearer she hears the cry, "They come.'* 

Far and near runs the cheer to her ear once so dear, 

Merry, merry, merry, up the merry highway, 

As it ran when he came that day 

And said, " Wilt thou be my dearie ? 

Oh, wilt thou be my dearie ? 

My boat is dry in the bay, 

And I'll love till thou be weary !'* 

And she could not say him nay, 

For his bonny eyes o' blue, 

And never was true-love so true. 

To never so kind a dearie, 

As he who will never love more, 

When the ship furls her sails by the shore. 

Then she shakes like a wind-stricken lily, 

"Whisht thee, boy, whisht thee, boy Willie! 

Whisht, whisht o' thy wailing, whisht thee, boy Willie !" 



SYDNEY DO BELL. 



179 




GOLDENHAIR climbed up on grandpapa's 
knee; 
Dear little Goldenhair ! tired was she, 
All the day busy as busy could be. 

Up in the morning as soon as 't was light, 
Out with the birds and butterflies bright. 
Skipping about till the coming of night. 

Grandpapa toyed with the curls on her head. 
" What has my baby been doing," he said, 
*' Since she arose, with the sun from her bed?" 

"Pitty much," answered the sweet little one; 
' I cannot tell so much things I have done, — ■ 
Played with my dolly and feeded my Bun. 

" And I have jumped with my little jump-rope, 
And I made out of some water and soap, 
Bufitle worlds ! mama's castles of Hope. 

" And I have readed in my picture-book, 

And little Bella and I went to look 

For some smooth stones by the side of the brook. 

" Then I comed home and eated my tea. 
And I climbed up to my grandpapa's knee, 
I jes as tired as tired can be." 

Lower and lower the little head pressed, 
Until it drooped upon grandpapa's breast ; 
Dear little Goldenhair ! sweet be thy rest ! 

We are but children ; the things that we do 
Are as sports of a babe to the infinite view 
That sees all our weakness, and pities it too. 

God grant that when night overshadows our way 
And we shall be called to account for our day. 
He shall find us as guileless as Goklenhair's play! 

And 0, when aweary may we be so blest 

As to sink like the innocent child to our rest, 

And feel ourselves clasped to the Infinite breast ! 



The real orphan is not he who has lost 
his father, but he whose father gave him 
no education. 



ORIENTALE. 



^ 



•^ 



F. BURGE SMITH 



TliHERE'S no dew left on the daisies and 
clover. 
There's no rain left in heaven. 
I've said my "seven times" over and over — 
Seven times one are seven. 

I am old, — so old I can write a letter; 

My birthday lessons are done. 
The lambs play always, — they know no better ; 

They are only one times one. 

Oh Moon ! in the night I have seen you sailing 

And shining so round and low. 
You were bright — ah bright — but your light is 
failing ; 

You are nothing now but a bow. 

You Moon ! have you done something wrong 
in heaven, 

That God has hidden your face ? 
I hope, if you have, you will soon be forgiven, 

And shine again in your place. 

Oh velvet Bee ! you're a dusty fellow, — 
You've powdered your legs with gold. 

Oh brave marsh Mary-buds, rich and yellow, 
Give me your money to hold ! 

Oh Columbine ! open your folded wrapper. 
Where two twin turtle-doves dwell ! 

Oh Cuckoo-pint! toll me the purple clapper 
That hangs in your clear green bell ! 

And show me your nest, with the young ones 
in it, — 

I will not steal them away ; 
I am old ! you may trust me, linnet, linnet ! 

I am seven times one to-day. 

JEAN I NGELO w. 



180 



''BE KIND, BOYS. 



U 



ll!®liliMtffi®l 



)*f 



YOU are made to be kind, boys, 
generous, magnanimous. If 
there is a boy in school who has 
a club-foot, don't let him know you ever 
saw it. If there is a poor boy with ragged 
clothes, don't talk about rags in his hear- 
ing. If there is a lame boy, assign him 
some part of the game which does not 
require running. If there is a hungry 
one, give him part of your dinner. If 
there is a dull one, help him to get his 
lesson. If there is a bright one, be not 
envious of him; for if one boy is proud 
of his talents, and another is envious of 
them, there are two great wrongs, and no 
more talent than before. If a larger or 
stronger boy has inj ured you, and is sorry 
for it, forgive him. All the school will 
show by their countenances how much 
better it is than to have a great fist. 



HORACE MANN. 



A DIHHBR AHD A KISS. 

HAVE brought your dinner, father," 
The blacksmith's daughter said, 
As she took from her arm the kettle, 
And lifted its shinino; lid. 



I 



" There is not any pie or pudding ; 

So I will give you this ;" 
And upon his toil-worn forehead 

She left the childish kiss. 
The blacksmith took off his apron, 

And dined in happy mood, 
Wondering much at the savor 

Hid in his humble food, 

Vv^hile all about him were visions 

Full of prophetic bliss ; 
But he never thought of the magic 

In his little daughter's kiss. 
While she, with her kettle swinging, 

Merrily trudged away, 
Stopi)ing at sight of a squirrel. 

Catching some wild bird's lay, 



O, I thought, how many a shadow 
Of life and fate we would miss, 

If always our frugal dinners 
Were seasoned with a kiss ! 



Md fememlimnccs of :(|MilhooH. 



THE dreams of childhood — its airy 
fables; its graceful, beautiful 
humane, impossible adornments 
of the world beyond ; so good to be be- 
lieved in once, so good to be remembered 
when outgrown, for then the least among 
them rises to the stature of a great Charity 
in the heart, suffering little children to 
come into the midst of it, and to keep 
with their pure hands a garden in the 
stony ways of this world, wherein it was 
better for all the children of Adam that 
they should oftener sun themselves, simple 
and trustful, and not worldly-wise — what 
had she to do with these ? Kemembrances 
of how she had journeyed to the little that 
she knew, by the enchanted roads of what 
she and millions of innocent creatures had 
hoped and imagined ; and how first com- 
ing upon Reason through the tender light 
of Fancy, she had seen it a beneficent 
god, deferring to gods as great as itself; 
not a grim Idol, cruel and cold, with its 
victims bound hand and foot, and its big 
dumb shape set up with a sightless stare, 
never to be moved by anything but so 
many calculated tons of leverage — what 
had she to do with these ? Her remem- 
brances of home and childhood were re- 
membrances of the drying up of every 
spring and fountain in her young heart as 
it gushed out. The golden waters were 
not there. They were fiowing for the 
fertilization of the land where grapes are 
gathered from thorns, and figs from 
thistles. 



CHARLES DICKENS 



181 



EARLY DAYS. 



EARLY DAYS. 



.H ! enviable early daj's, 
^1 When dancing thoughtless pleasure' 
maze, 

To care to guilt unkno^Yn ! 
How ill exchanged for riper times, 
To feel the follies or the crimes 

Of others or my own ! 
Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport, 

Like linnets in the bush, 
Ye little know the ills ye court, 

When manhood is your wish ! 

ROBERT BURNS. 



A heritage, it seems to me, 

A king might wish to hold in fee. 

Both, heirs to some six feet of sod, 
Are equal in the earth at last, 

Both, children of the same dear GT)d, 
Prove title to your heirship vast 
By records of a well-fill'd past: 
A heritage, it seems to me. 
Well worth a life to hold in fee. 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



CliildreR of tb Hicli and Poor Contrasted. 



The JlurgePfl. 



THE rich man's son inherits lands, 
And piles of brick, and stone and gold, 
And he inherits soft white hands. 
And tender flesh that fears the cold. 
Nor dares to wear a garment old : 
A heritage, it seems to me. 
One scarce would wish to hold in fee. 

The rich man's son inherits cares, — 
The bank may break, the factory burn, 

A breath may burst his bubble shares ; 
And soft white hands could hardly earn 
A living that would serve his turn : 
A heritage, it seems to me, 
One scarce would wish to hold in fee. 

What doth the poor man's son inherit ? 
Stout muscles and a sinewy heart, 

A hardy frame, a hardier spirit; 
King of two hands he does his part 
In every useful toil and art: 
A heritage, it seems to me, 
A king might Avish to hold in fee. 

What doth the poor man's son inherit ? 
A i^itience learned of being poor. 

Courage, if sorrow comes, to bear it, 
A fellow feeling that is sure 
To make the outcast bless his door : 




|HE nursery anticipates the 
school and the church ; it sows 
the first seed and in that little 
home the atmosphere of the 
world first comes into close contact with 
the child's moral and immortal nature. 
Looked at in its true light, what is the 
nursery but just the next -age in its bud 
and blossom? An enlightened regard, 
therefore, for the highest good of our chil- 
dren should make us deeply concerned for 
that of our domestics ; for in contributing 
to their knowledge of God, we are helping 
to purify the moral atmosphere in which 
our whole household shall live and move, 
and laying down deeper, by every such 
effort, the foundations of our domestic 
happiness, and through this, in our share 
promoting the true prosperity and sta- 
bility of the commonwealth. It has been 
justly said, " Families are the nurseries 
both for the state and for the church ; the 
springs which, from their retirements, 
send forth the tributary streams, w^hich 
by their confluence make up the majestic 
flow of national greatness and prosperity. 



DR. A. THOMPSON. 



182 



(^ 



^ 




1, 









A 



l5) 



1CAXX0T make him dead ! 
His fair sunshiny head 
Is ever bomiding round my study chair ; 
Yet, when my eyes, now dim 
With tears, I turn to him, 
The vision vanishes— he is not there! 

I walk my parlor floor, 

And, through the open door, 
I hear a footfall on the chamber stair : 

I'm stepping toward the hall 

To give the boy a call ; 
And then bethink me that — he is not there ! 

I thread the crowded street ; 

A satchelled lad I meet. 
With the same beaming eyes and colored hair 

And, as he's running by. 

Follow him vdih. my eye, 
Scarcel}' belie\'ing that — he is not there ! 

I know his face is hid 

Under the coffin lid ; 
Closed are his eyes ; cold is his forehead fair ; 

My hand that marble felt; 

O'er it in prayer I knelt ; 
Yet my heart whispers that — he is not there ! 

I cannot make him dead I 

When passing by the bed, 
So long watched over with parental care, 

My spirit and my eye 

Seek him inquiringly. 
Before the thought comes that — he is not there ! 

When, at the cool, gray break 

Of day, from sleep I wake, 
\\'ith my first breathing of the morning air 

My soul goes up, with joy. 

To Him who gave my boy ; 
Then comes the sad thought that — he is not 
there I 

When at the day's calm close, 

Before we seek repose, 
I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer: 

Whate'er I may be sajdng, 

I am in spirit praying 
For our boy's spirit, though— he is not there! 



Not there ! — ^^Tiere, then, is he? 

The form I used to see 
Was but the raiment that he used to wear. 

The grave, that now doth press 

Upon that cast-off dress, 
Is but his wardrobe locked ; — he is not there! 

He lives ! — In all the past 

He lives ; nor, to the last. 
Of seeing him again will I despair ; 

In di'eams I see him now ; 

And, on his angel brow, 
I see it written, " Thou shalt see me there /^* 

Y^es, we all live to God ! 

Father, thy chastening rod 
So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear. 

That, in the spirit land, 

Meeting at thy right hand, 
'T will be our heaven to tind that — he is there! 

JOHN PIERPONT. 



Di^ac |ot^ a Yo^^g^ Qvc^, 



^^ NDERNEATH the sod low lying, 
I~| Dark and drear, 



f 



Sleepeth one who left, in dying, 
Sorrow here. 



Y^es ! they're ever bending o'er her 

Eyes that weep, 
Forms that to the cold grave bore her 

Vigils keep. 

AMien the summer moon is shining, 

Soft and fair, 
Friends she loved, in tears are tw^ining 

Chaplets there. 

Rest in peace, thou gentle spirit. 

Throned above ! 
Souls like thine with God inherit 

Life and love 1 



JAMES T. FIELDS, 



183 



p fflOLOGH OF A Baby. 




MOTHER little boy— the 
biggest there, but still lit- 
tle — was tottering to and 
fro, bent on one side, and 
considerably affected in his 
knees by the weight of a 
large baby, which he was 
supposed by a fiction that obtains some- 
times in sanguine families, to be hushing 
to sleep. But oh ! the inexhaustible re- 
gions of contemplation and watchfulness 
into which this baby's eyes were then only 
beginning to compose themselves to stare, 
over his unconscious shoulder ! 

It was a very Moloch of a baby, on 
whose insatiate altar the whole existence of 
this particular young brother was offered 
up a daily sacrifice. Its personality may 
be said to have consisted in its never being 
quiet in any one place, for five consecutive 
minutes, and never going to sleep when 
required. Tetterby's baby was as well 
known in the neighborhood as the post- 
man or the pot-boy. It roved from door- 
step to door-step in the arms of little 
Johnny Tetterby, and lagged heavily at 
the rear of troops of juveniles who followed 
the tumblers or the monkey, and came up, 
all on one side, a little too late for every- 
thing that was attractive, from Monday 
morning till Saturday night. Wherever 
childhood congregated to play, there was 
little Moloch making Johnny fag and toil. 
Whenever Johnny desired to stay, little 
Moloch became fractious, and would not 
remain. Whenever Johnny wanted to 
go out, Moloch was asleep and must be 
watched. AMienever Johnny wanted to 
stay at home, Moloch was awake and must 
be taken out. Yet Johnny was verily 



persuaded that it was a faultless baby, 
without its peer in the realm of England ; 
and was quite content to catch meek 
glimpses of things in general from behind 
its skirts, or over its limp flapping bonnet, 
and to go staggering about with it like a 
very little porter with a very large parcel, 
which was not directed to any body, and 
could never be delivered anywhere. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 



BOYISH HABITS. 



I HA YE sometimes thought of break- 
ing myself of what are termed boy- 
ish habits; but reflection has satis- 
fied me that it would be very foolish, and 
that I should esteem it a blessing that I 
can find amusement in everything," from 
tossing a cricket-ball to negotiating a 
treaty with the Emperor of China. Men 
who will give themselves entirely to busi- 
ness and despise (which is their tendency) 
trifles, may be very able in their general 
conception of the great outline of a plan, 
but they feel a want of knowledge, which 
is only to be gained by mixing with all 
classes in the world, when they come to 
those lesser points upon which its successful 
execution may depend. 

SIR JOHN MALCOLM. 



TWO things are absolutely necessary 
to young people : Exercise to ren- 
der them robust, and discipline to make 
them good and wise. 



PLATO 



The boy who best learns all he can 
Will best succeed when he's a man. 



184 



^ 



oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 



MOTHER AND CHILD. 



^ 




O O O O OQOOOOOOQO GO Q O O OOOOOOOOOOO O O O O O O 

HE wind blew wide the casement, and within — 
It was the loveliest picture ! — a sweet child 
Lay in its mother's arms, and drew its life, 
In pauses, from the fountain, — the white round 
Part shaded by loose tresses, soft and dark. 
Concealing, but still showing, the fair realm 
Of so much rapture, as green shadowing trees 
With beauty shroud the brooklet. The red lips 
Were parted, and the cheek upon the breast 
Lay close, and, like the young leaf of the flower, 
Wore the same color, rich and warm and fresh: — 
And such alone are beautiful. Its eye, 
A full blue gem, most exquisitely set, 
Looked archly on its world, — the little imp, 
As if it knew even then that such a wreath 
Were not for all ; and with its playful hands 
It drew aside the robe that hid its realm. 
And peeped and laughed aloud, and so it laid 
Its head upon the shrine of such pure joys. 
And, laughing, slept. And while it slept, the tears 
Of the sweet mother fell upon its cheek, — 
Tears such as fall from April skies, and bring 
The sunlight after. They were tears of joy ; 
And the true heart of that young mother then 
Grew lighter, and she sang unconsciously 
The sijliest ballad-song that ever yet 
Subdued the nursery's voices, and brought sleep 
To fold her sabbath wings above its couch. 

W I L L I A M G I L M O R E S I M M S . 





CHILDREN A LOAN. 



OOD Christian people! here lies for you an inestimable loan: take all hoed 
^Cj^ thereof; in all carefulness employ it: with high recompense or else witJi 
r heavy penalty, will it one day be required back. 



THOMAS CARLYL 



185 



=*==^ 



11 mmmmmmmmm mmm^^^h^ 



FROM " THE HANGING OF THE CRANE. 



ctj 



EATED I see the two again, 
Vj But not alone ; they entertain 
J^ A Httle angel unaware, 
With face as round as is the moon ; 
A royal guest with flaxen hair. 
Who, throned upon his lofty chair. 
Drums on the table with his spoon, 
Then drops it careless on the floor, 
To grasp at things unseen before. 
Are these celestial manners ? these 
The ways that win, the arts that please 
Ah, yes ; consider well the guest. 
And whatsoe'er he does seems best, 
He ruleth by the right divine 
Of helplessness, so lately born 



In purple chambers of the morn, 
As sovereign over thee and thine. 
He speaketh not, and yet there lies 
A conversation in his eyes ; 
The golden silence of the Greek, 
The gravest wisdom of the wise. 
Not spoken in language, but in looks 
More legible than printed books, 
As if he could but would not speak. 
And now, monarch absolute 
Thy power is put to proof; for lo I 
Resistless, fathomless, and slow. 
The nurse comes rustling like the sea, 
And pushes back the chair and thee, 
And so good night to King Canute. 

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 



oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 



Importance of a Child, 



HY mother's joy, thy father's hope thou bright, 

Bright pure dwelling, where two fond hearts keep their gladness ; 
Thou little potentate of love, who comest 
With solemn sweet dominion to the old, 
Who see thee in thy merry fancies charged 
With the grave embassage of that dear past, 
When they were young like thee, thou vindication 
Of God, thou living witness against all men 
Who have been babies, thou everlasting promise 
Which no man keeps, thou portrait of our nature, 
Which in despair and pride, we scorn and worship 
Thou household God, whom no icouoclast 
Hath broken ! 



SYDNEY DOBELL. 



186 



A CHILD'S FIRST IMPRESSION OF A STAR. 



A Child's First Impression of a Star. 

^y HE liad boon told that God made all 

^^ the stars 

VL/ That twinkled up in heaven, and now 

she stood 
Watching the coming of the twilight on, 
As if it were a new and perfect world, 
And this were its first eve. She stood alone 
By the low window^, with the silken lash 
Of her soft eye upraised, and her sweet mouth 
Half parted, with the new and strange delight 
Of beauty that she could not comprehend, 
And had not seen before. The purple folds 
Of the low sunset clouds, and the blue sky 
That look'd so still and delicate above, 
Fill'd her young heart with gladness, and the 

eve 
Stole on with its deep shadows, and she still 
Stood looking at the west with that half smile, 
As if a pleasant thought were at her heart. 
Presently, in the edge of the last tint 
Of sunset, where the blue was melted in 
To the faint golden mellowness, a star 
Stood suddenly. A laugh of wild delight 
Burst from her lips, and putting up her hands. 
Her simple thought broke forth expressively — 
"Father! dear ftither! God has made a star!" 

N . P . WILLIS. 



||hattl|e :|lirist-fcrii^md<o ilhilton. 

I 



ITTLE children, love each other, 
Never give mother pain ; 
f If your brother speak in anger, 



Answer not in wrath again. 



Be not selfish to each other, 
Never mar another's rest, 

Strive to make each other happy, 
And you Avill yourselves be blest. 



ON WITNESSING A BAPTISM. 



SHE stood u 
Resting oi 
child 



p in the meekness of a heart 
on God, and held her feir young 



Upon her bosom, with its gentle eyes 
Folded in sleep, as if its soul had gone 
To whisper the baptismal vow in heaven. 



The prayer went up devoutly, and the lips 
Of the good man glow'd fervently with faith 
That it would be, even as he had pray'd, 
And the sweet child be gather'd to the fold 
Of Jesus. As the holy words went on 
Her lips moved silently, and tears, fast tears, 
Stole from beneath her lashes, and upon 
The forehead of the beautiful child lay soft 
With the baptismal water. Then I thought 
That, to the eye of God, that mother's tears 
Would be a deeper covenant — which sin 
And the temptations of the world, and death, 
Would leave unbroken — and that she would 

know 
In the clear light of heaven, how very strong 
The prayer which press'd them from her heart 

had been 
In leading its young spirit up to God. 

N. p. WILLIS. 



Undep^ fflY Window. 

UNDER my window, under my window, 
All in the Midsummer weather, 
Three little girls with fluttering curls 
Flit to and fro together : — 
There's Bell with her bonnet of satin sheen, 
And Maud with her mantle of silver-green, 
And Kate with her scarlet feather. 

Under my w^indow, under my window, 

Leaning stealthily over, 
Merry and clear, the voice I hear, 

Of each glad-hearted rover. 
Ah ! sly little Kate, she steals my roses ; 
And Maud and Bell twine wreaths and posies 

As merry as bees in clover. 

Under my window, under my window;. 
In the blue Midsummer weather, 

Stealing slow, on a hushed tip-toe, 
I catch them all together : — 

Bell with her bonnet of satin sheen, 

And ^laud with her mantle of silver-green, 
And Kate with the scarlet feather. 

Under my window, under my window, 
And off through the orchard closes ; 

While Maud she flouts, and Bell she pouts, 
They scamper and drop their posies ; 

But dear little Kate takes nought amiss, 

And leaps in my arms with a loving kiss, 
And 1 give her all my roses. 

T, WESTWOOD. 



187 



RECOLLECTIONS OF BOYHOOD. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF BOYHOOD. 




E it a weakness, it desers^es 
some praise ; 
We love the play-place of 
our early days : 
The scene is touching, and 

the heart is stone 
That feels not at that sight, 
and feels at none. 
The wall on which we tried om- graving 

skill, 
The very name we carved existing still ! 
The bench on which we sat while deep 

employed, 
Tho' mangled, hack'd and hew'd, not yet 

destroyed ; 
The little ones unbuttoned glowing hot, 
Playing our games, and on the very spot; 
As happy as we once, to kneel and draw 
The chalky ring, and knuckle down at taw: 
To pitch the ball into the grounded hat. 
Or drive it devious with dextrous pat. 
The pleasing spectacle at once excites 
Such recollection of our own delights, 
That, viewing it, we seem almost t' obtain 
Our innocent, sweet, simple years again. 
This fond attachment to the well-known 

place, 
When first we started into life's long race. 
Maintains its hold with such unfailing 

sway, 
AVe feel it even in age, at our latest day. 

w M , c o w P E R . 



MIS7 Amm THE DAISIES. 



JOOR little Daisy ! So ti-ed was she ! 
^i^' Mamma was busy as busy could be, — 
For house-cleaning time had arrived, 
you must know, 
And troublesome Daisy was brim-fall of woe ; 
She tripped over this,— she stumbled in that,— 
And over a big roll of carpet fell flat ; 
She bumped her small nose 



Till 'twas red as a rose ; 

And, to crown her mishaps, 

Xursie trod on her toes : 

" Then, please, miss, just keep yourself out of 

the way," 
Growled nurse. Oh, wretched, uncomfortable 

day! 
Poor Daisy ! her questions unheeded. 
Her proffered assistance not needed, 
Scolded for nothing (she thought in her heart). 
Allowed m the wondrous commotion no part,— 
^^liat wonder, at last, 
That she ran away fast 
To the beautiful fields, where all troubles were 

past, 
To the beautiful meadows, where daisies ^v^re 

growing, 
And where the tall gi'asses the soft wina u'as 

blowing ? 
There were bright yellow buttercups, biim-fuli 

of butter, 
And gayly- winged butterflies, all in ^ llutter; 
And sweet clover-blossoms, that tempted the 

bees 
To steal all the honey their bee-ships might 

please ; 
And, right in the midst of these pleasures, 
The sunshine fell down 
Like a soft, golden crow^i. 
To rest on the field full of treasures, 
And kiss little Daisy, who sat in the grass. 
To talk to the butterflies — sweet httle lass ! 
''O, dear Mr. Butterf'y, what do you think? 

My house isn't pleasant to-day ; 
For everj^one's cross, and the cartips are up. 

And nurse said to ' get out of ze way.' 
So I've come to your house, and I'll be just as 
dood 
As a little dirl ever can be — 
0, dear Mr. Butterf '}', zat ain't polite, 

T\Tien I'm talking, to fly off from me ! " 
But ofi" o'er the meadow the butterfly soared, 
Unheeding his wee little guest, truth to tell; 
And Daisy decided to visit awhile 

The little white ' f owers ' she liked so well. 
So, where the fair daisies kept house together, 
Half hidden 'mongst grasses as high as her 
head, 
Our dear little Daisy, so tired, grew sleepy, 
And borrowed a part of the wild flowers' bed. 
And there, while the sunshine was stealing 

about 
Her sweet sleeping-place, with a peep in and 
out, — 



188 



DAISY AMONG THE DAISIES. 



Now leaving ta kiss on the soft, yellow hair, 
Now trying to brown the dimpled cheeks fair, — 
Little Daisy all drowsily talked to the flowers, 
While minutes were hastening to make up the 

hours : 
*' How lunny it is, I think, don't you ? 
That Fm a daisy, and y'ou are, too ! 
But then, Fm mamma's daisy, and so 
/ don't live in the grass and grow. 
I don't know where I came from, though ; 
Maybe I used to be a little thing. 
All yellow in the middle, with a little vdng, 
GroAdng out all wound, and just as white 
As yours ! " Here Daisy laid a finger light 
Upon the soft white leaves beside her cheek. 
"0, little bit of f ower-daisy, speak 
To me ! Tell me, do you know 
If you, some day, a little dirl will gwow ? 
Maybe a mamma'll come and get you, 
And, if the sunshine-mother'll let you, 
Go away from all the others, — 
All your f 'ower sisters and brothers ; 
And then you '11 be a little live dirl, 
And maybe your hair will twist and turl, 
And make you cry when nursie combs it, jus' 
As / do cry, and, nurse says, ' mate a fuss.' 
Mamma don't love her girl-daisy to-day, 
And that is why I runned so fast away. 
I wish a birdie please would sing a song, 
I'm just as sleepy as — as — " Ah! erelong 
The tired eyelids, over tired eyes, 
Fell softly down, beneath the summer skies. 

MARY D. BRINE. 



She nAUGHiPY Baii^n, 



HE bairnie sat on the hillock hard, 

The bright little brook beside, 
^yith a world of care on his bonnie 
face, 
And the tears on his cheeks scarce dried. 




He put his books in his satchel worn, 
And kissed the mother good-bye ; 

And smiled at her caution to walk in the 
road, 
For the grass was scarcely dry. 

The naughty bairn ! he had in his mind 

How merry it would be 
To go and sit by the babbling brook. 

And the pebbles and flowers see. 

He could not bear to think of the school, 
And the long, long, tiresome da}-; 

So he laid his satchel 'neath the old stone 
wall, 
And hied to the brook away. 

He tossed the pebbles in the waters bright, 
And plucked the sweet "wild flowers ; 

And thought what a merry way this was 
To spend the morning hours. 

So he merrily played till the sun ^vent down, 

In a sea of crimson fire ; 
And he saw o'er the meadow^s slowly creep 

The shadow of the village spire. 

And then he remembered he must go home, 
And he thought of his mother's frown ; 

And then first he saw his mud-soiled hands. 
And the stains on his best school gown. 

And somehow the brook as it rippled along, 
Sang a quaint and a sad, sad lay ; 

It sang to the bairn of the stolen hoiars, 
And the lost and wasted day. 

And home through the gloaming the 
bairnie strayed, 

But the smile of the day was gone; 
For, child as he w\as, he felt the grief 

That always follows wrong. 



A naughty boy the bairn had been. 
He had strayed from school away. 

For the lessons were hard, and he could 
not learn, 
And he longed, oh, he longed to play. 



Though the doing wrong may seem merry 
and light, 

The meni'ry is cold and chill ; 
And the only pleasure we can truly know 

Is doing the Father's will. 



189 



THE SCHOOL BOY, 



-^- — * — -^ 

WE bought him a box for his books 
and things, 
And a cricket-bag for his bat; 
And he looked the brightest and 
best of kings 
Under his new straw hat. 
We handed him into the railway train 
With a troop of his young compeers, 
And we made as though it were dust and 
rain 
Were filling our eyes with tears. 
We looked in his innocent face to see 

The sign of a sorrowful heart; 
But he only shouldered his bat with glee 
And wondered when they would start. 
'Twas not that he loved not as heretofore, 

For the boy was tender and kind ; 
But his was a world that was all before, 

And ours was a world behind. 
'Twas not his fluttering heart was cold. 

For the child was loyal and true ; 
And the parents love the love that is old, 
And the children the love that is new. 
And we came to know that love is a flower 

Which only groweth down ; 
And we scarcely spoke for the space of an 
hour 
As we drove back through the town. 



€€ 



fM€ aifd l^iaiid^. 



ff) 



^HAT shall we do?" the children said, 
By the spirit of frolic and mischief 
led, 
Frank and Lulu and Carrie, three 
As full of nonsense as they could be : 
Who never were known any fun to stop 
Until they were just about ready to drop. 
Frank, whose " knoAvledge-box " surely 

abounds 
With games, spoke up for "Hare and 

Hounds," 
" Down the cellar or up the stair, 
Here and there, and everywhere, 



You must follow, for I'm the Hare!" 
Lulu and Carrie gave quick consent. 
And at cutting their papers and capers went, 
For the stairs were steep, and they must not 

fail 
To have enough fo:^ a good long trail. 
Away went the Hare 
Eight up the stair. 
And away went the Hounds, a laughing 

pair ; 

And Tony, who sat 
Near Kitty, the cat, 
And was really a dog worth looking at, 
With a queer grimace 
Soon joined the race. 
And followed the game at a lively pace ! 
Then puss, who knew 
A thing or two. 
Prepared to follow the noisy crew. 
And never before or since, I ween, 
Was ever beheld such a hunting scene ! 
The Hare was swift; and the papers went 
This way and that, to confuse the scent; 
But Tony, keeping his nose in air, 
In a very few moments betrayed the Hare, 
Which the children told him was hardly 

fair. 
I can not tell you how long they played, 
Of the fun they had, or the noise they 

made ; 
For the best of things in this world, I think, 
Can ne'er be written with pen and ink. 
But Bridget, who went on her daily rounds, 
Picking up after the "Hare and Hounds," 
Said she didn't mind hearing their lively 

capers, 
But her back was broke with scraps o' 

papers. 
Carrie, next day, couldn't raise her head ; 
Frank and Lulu were sick in Ijcd ; 
The dog and the cat were a used-u[) pair, 
And all of them needed the doctor's care. 
The children themselves can hardly fail 
To tack a moral upon this trail ; 
And I guess on rather more level grounds 
They'll play their next game of " Hare and 

Hounds." 



JOSEPHINE POLLARD. 



190 



*ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 



I 111 f Mites' Wsmm M 



h 



'ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo* 



THE clock strikes seven in the hall, 
The curfew of the children's day, 
That calls each little pattering foot 
From dance and song and lively play ; 
Their day that in a wider light 
Floats like a silver day-moon white, 
Nor in our darkness sinks to rest, 
But sets within a golden west. 

Ah, tender hour that sends a drift 

Of children's kisses through the house, 
And cuckoo notes of sweet "Good night," 

That thoughts of heaven and home arouse, 
And a soft stir to sense and heart, 
As Avhen the bee and blossom part ; 
And little feet that patter slower. 
Like the last drojopings of a shower. 

And in the children's room aloft. 
What blossom shapes do gaily slip 

Their daily sheaths, and rosy run 
From clasping hand and kissing lip, 

A naked sweetness to the eye — 

Blossom and babe and butterfly 

In witching one, so dear a sight ' 

An ecstasy of life and light. 

Then lily-drest, in angel white. 

To mother's knee they trooping come. 
The soft palms fold like kissing shells, 
And they and we go singing home— 
Their bright heads bowed and worshiping, 
As though some glory of the spring. 
Some daffodil that mocks the day, 
Should fold his golden palms and pray. 

The gates of paradise swing wide 
A moment's space in soft accord. 

And those dread angels. Life and Death, 
A moment veil the flaming sword. 

As o'er this weary world forlorn 

From Eden's secret heart is borne 

That breath of Paradise most fair. 

Which mothers call "the children's prayer." 

Then kissed, on beds we lay them down, 
As fragrant white as clover'd sod. 

And all the upper floors grow hushed 
With children's sleep, and dews of God. 



And as our stars their beams do hide, 
The stars of twilight, opening wide. 
Take up the heavenly tale at even, 
And light us on to God and heaven. 



JANE ELLIS HOPKINS 



"NOT LOST, BUUONE BEFORE," 

^6Y^0W mournful seems, in broken dreams, 
The memory of the day, 
When icy Death hath seal'd the breath 
Of some dear form of clay. 

When pale, unmoved, the face we loved, 

The face we thought so fair. 
And the hand lies cold, whose fervent hold 

Once charm'd away despair. 

Oh, what could heal the grief we feel 

For hopes that come no more. 
Had we ne'er heard the Scripture word, 

" Not lost, but gone before." 

Oh sadly yet with vain regret 

The widow's heart must yearn ; 
And mothers weep their babes asleep 

In the sunlights's vain return. 

The brother's heart shall rue to part 

From the one through childhood known; 

And the orphan's tears lament for years 
A friend and father gone. 

For death and life, with ceaseless strife, 

Beat wdld on this world's shore. 
And all our calm is in that balm, 

''Not lost, but gone before." 

Oh ! world wherein nor death, nor sin, 

Nor weary warfare dwells ; 
Their blessed home we parted from 

With sobs and sad farewells. 

Where eyes awake, for whose dear sake 

Our own with tears grow dim, 
And faint accords of dying words 

Are changed for heaven's sweet hymn ; 

Oh ! there at last, life's trials past. 
We'll meet our loved once more, 

Whose feet have trod the path to God— 
" Not lost, but gone before." 



HON. MRS. NORTON. 



19X 



LITTLE CHILDREN. 



ht W^ni miilt Mm. 




PORTUSTG through the forest wide, 
Playing by the water side, 
Wandering o'er the heather fells, 
Down within the woodland delist 

All among the mountains wild, 

Dwelleth many a little child. 

In the rich man's house so wide, 
By the poor man's snug fireside, 
'Mid the mighty, 'mid the mean, 
Little children may be seen; 
Like the flowers which spring up fair, 
Bright and countless everywhere ! 

In the fair isles of the main. 
In the desert's lone domain, 
In the savage mountain glen, 
'Mong the tribes of swarthy men, 
Wheresoe'er a foot hath gone, 
Wheresoe'er the sun hath shone 
On a league of peopled ground. 
Little children may be found ! 

Blessings on them ! they, in me. 
Move a kindly sympathy. 
With their wishes, hopes, and fears. 
With their laughter and their tears, 
With their wonders, so intense, 
And their small experience. 

Little children not alone 
On the spacious earth are known, 
'Mid its labors and its cares, 
'Mid its sufferings and its snares ; 

Free from sorroAv, free from strife. 
In .the world of love and life. 
Where no sinful thing hath crod — ■ 
In the presence of our God, 
Spotless, blameless, glorified. 
Little children there abide ! 



W 



E miss her footfall on the floor. 
Amidst the nursery din, 

Her tip-tap at our bedroom door. 
Her bright face peeping in. 



MARY HOWITT. 



And when to Heaven's high court above 

Ascends our social prayer, 
Though there are voices that we love, 

One sweet voice is not there. 

And dreary seem the hours, and lone. 

That drag themselves along, 
Now from our board her smile is gone, 

And from our hearth her song. 

We miss that farewell laugh of hers. 

With its light joyous sound, 
And the kiss between the balusters. 

When goodnight time comes round. 

And empty is her little bed. 

And on her pillow there 
Must never rest that cherub head 

With its soft silken hair. 

But often as we wake and weep, 
Our midnight thoughts will roam, 

To visit her cold, dreamless sleep. 
In her last narrow home. 

Then, then it is Faith's tear-dimm'd eyes 

See through ethereal space. 
Amidst the angel-crowded skies. 

That dear, that well-known face. 

i 

With beckoning hand she seems to say, 
" Though, all her sufferings o'er. 

Your little one is borne away 
To the celestial shore. 

Doubt not she longs to welcome you 

To her glad, bright abode, 
There happy endless ages through 

To live with her and God." 



192 




BENNY'S QUESTIONS. 



CMsV^ 



HAT is the kitty good for? 
My little boy Benny said. 



To catch the mice in the pantry 
When they nibble raamma's bread, 
To sit on the rug in the sunshine, 
To play with her little toes, 
And if kitty is good for anything else, 
It is more than mamma knows. 



Oh, Benny, my boy, I answered, 
As I pillowed his sunshiny head, 
Your mamma is good for nothing 
If she can not teach her child 
To follow the Infant Saviour, 
So loving, tender, and mild. 



FOUR TJEslRS OLD 



What is the mooly cow good for, 
Mamma? I'd like to know. 

To eat green grass in the pastures 

Where the meadow-lilies grow. 

To give us sweet golden butter, 

Rich milk, and }#llow cream. 

And a great many more good presents 

Than Benny could even dream. 

What are the busy bees good for — 
To sting little boys ? asked he. 

There is many a lesson my boy could learn 

From even a busy bee. 

For he works all day in the summer 

Laying sweet treasures by 

For the long cold days that are coming, 

When roses and violets die. 

What is old Rover good for ? 
I'm sure I can not see. 

To teach my Benny how patient 
Even a brute can be ; 
To watch papa's house at midnight, 
AVhen the lamps are all out in the street, 
So, Benny, take care of good Rover, 
And give him enough to eat. 

What is my mamma good for ? 
The little rogue laughing said. 

13 193 



OH, sun ! so far up in the blue sk y ; 
Oh, clovers ! so white and so rweet ; 
Oh, little brook ! shining like silver^ 
And running so fast past my feet,— 

You don't know what strange thing: has 

happened 
Since sunset and star-shine last night ; 
Since the four-o' clocks closed their K)a 

petals 
To wake up so early and bright. 

Say, what will you think when I tell you 
What my dear mamma whispered to me, 
When she kissed me on each cheek twice 

over ? 
You don't know what a man you may see ! 

Sweet-clover, stand still ; do not blow so : 
I shall whisper way down in youx ear, 
I was four years old. early this morning! 
Would you think so, to see me, my dear ? 

Po you notice my pants and two pockets ? 
I'm so old, I must dress like a man ; 
I must learn to read books and write letters, 
And I'll write one to you wlien I can. 

My pretty gold butterflies flying, 
Little birds, and my busy brown bee, 
I shall never be too old to love you ; 
And I hope that you'll always love me 

FANNY B E N E 1 < 







mm^^. »^^ 



^x^l^r 




" Honor thy father and thy mother," 



A 



ATHER and mother ! sacred names and dear ; 
The sweetest music to the infant ear, 
And dearer still to those, a joyous band, 
AVho sport in childhood's bright enchanted land. 

And when, as years roll on, night follows dav, 
The young wax old and loyed ones pass away, 
Throuo^h mists of time yet holier and more dear, 
" Father and mother '' sound to memoiy's ear. 

The days, the hom-s, the moments as they speed. 
Each crowned by loving thought or word or deed, 
Oh, heart's long-suffering, self-denying I sure 
Earth holds no loye more true, and none so pure. 

Thou happy child whom a good God hath giyen 
A parents' shelt'ring home, that earthly heayen, 
AVhere ceaseless care, where tireless loye and true, 
Kurse thy young life as flowers are nursed by dew, 

E'en as the flowers, for the dear debt they owe, 
Bloom, and sweet odors in rich meed bestow, 
Let the fair blossoms of thy loye and duty 
Cluster about thy home in fragrant beautj. 

Xeyer from eye or lip be seen or heard 
The sullen glance or the rebellious word, 
And neyer wilfully or heedless pain 
The tender hearts that cannot wound again. 

But fond caress, sweet smile and loying tone, 
Obedience prompt and glad, be thine alone. 
For filial loye, like mercy, is twice blest ; 
^Tiile to the parent of earth's joys the best, 
Richer than treasures of the land or sea. 
It wins God's blessing, O my child, for thee I 



194 



JMlADGE, wee woman with earnest look, 
***# Is head and ears in a fairy book ; 
Rob is a rogue with hair of tow, 
Last but greatest is Baby Joe. 



Fastened down there 

In the big arm-chair, 
Stiff and angular, strong and square. 
He can't get up and he can't slide out ; 
Nothing to do but to wriggle about, 
Suck his thumbs and his rubber ring, 
And wonder vaguely about his shoes 
(Shiny and small such as babies use). 
How they ever came on his feet. 
If they're made to look at, or only to eat? 
Thinks quite strongly of making a spring 
In the hope of breaking the naughty thing 
That holds him a prisoner snug and tight 
In that tiresome chair from morning till 
night. 



But here comes Rob with a funny face. 
Baby looks up and takes heart of grace ; 
All his sorrows and griefs are past ; 
Here is something to do at last. 
He gurgles and crows 
And wrinkles his nose. 
With one little dimple that comes and 

goes; 
He stretches an arm with a doubled-up 

fist. 
Soft and rosy from elbow to wrist. 
For Rob has been puffing his red cheeks 

out 
Till they look like big apples he's holding 

there, 
Ripe and shining and smooth and fair. 
Baby Joe strikes hard with his fist of pink 
At the puckered-up lips, then quicker than 

wink 
Rob jumps to his feet with a laugh and a 

shout, 



And capers and dances and whirls about. 
But the best of the play is, that when it is 

done 
They can play it all over again, 

Such fun ! 

CARRIE M. THOMPSON. 



GASA WAPPY. 



I^ND hast thou sought thy heavenly home, 
Our fond, dear boy — 
The realms where sorrow dare not come, 
Where life is joy ? 
Pure at thy death, as at thy birth, 
Thy spirit caught no taint from earth; 
Even by its bliss we meet our dearth, 
Casa Wappy ! 

Despair was in our last farewell, 

As closed thine eye ; 
Tears of our anguish may not tell 

When thou didst die ; 
Words may not paint our grief for thee; 
Sighs are but bubbles on the sea 
Of our unfathomed agony ; 
Casa Wappy ! 

Thou wert a vision of delight. 

To bless us given ; 
Beauty embodied to our sight — 

A type of heaven ! 
So dear to us thou wert, thou art 
Even less thine own self, than a part 
Of mine, and of thy mother's heart, 
Casa Wappy ! 

Thy bright, brief day knew no decline — 

'T was cloudless joy ; 
Sunrise and night alone were thine, 

Beloved boy ! 
This moon beheld thee blythc and gay ; 
That found thee prostrate in decay ; 
And ere a third shone, clay was clay, 
Casa Wappy ! 



* The self-appellutive of a beloved child. 



195 



CAS A WAPPY. 



Gem of our hearth, our household pride, 

Earth's undefiled, 
Could love have saved, thou hadst not died, 

Our dear, sweet child ! 
Humbly we bow to Fate's decree ; 
Yet had we hoped likat Time should see 
Tliee mourn for us, not us for thee, 
Casa Wappy ! 

Do what I may, go where I will, 

Thou meet'st my sight ; 
There dost thou glide before me still — 

A form of light ! 
I feel thy breath upon my cheek — 
I see thee smile, I hear thee speak — 
Till oh ! my heart is like to break, 
Casa Wappy ! 

Methinks thou smU'st before me now, 

"With glance of stealth ; 
The hair thrown back from thy full brow 

In buoyant health ; 
I see thine eyes' deep violet light — 
Thy dimpled cheek carnation bright — 
Thy clasping arms so round and white — 
Casa Wappy ! 

The nursery shows thy pictured wall, 

Thy bat — thy bow— 
Thy cloak and bonnet — club and ball ; 

•But where art thou ? 
A corner holds thine empty chair ; 
Th}' playthings, idly scattered there. 
But speak to us of our despair, 
Casa Wappy ! 

Even to the last, thy every word — 

To glad — to grieve — 
Was sweet, as sweetest song of bird 

On Summer's eve ; 
In outward beauty undecayed, 
Death o'er thy spirit cast no shade. 
And, like the rainbow, thou didst fade, 
Casa Wappy ! 

We mourn for thee, when blind, blank night 

The chamber fills ; 
We pine for thee, when morn's first light 

Reddens the hills ; 
The sun, the moon, the stars, the sea, 
All — ^to the wall-flower and \\ald-pea — 
Are changed ; we saw the world thro' thee, 
Casa Wappy ! 

And though, perchance, a smile may gleam 

Of casual mirth. 
It doth not owTi, whate'er may seem, 

An inward birth ; 



We miss thy small step on the stair ; — 
We miss thee at thine evening prayer ; 
All day we miss thee — everj'where — 
Casa Wappy ! 

Snows muffled earth when thou didst go, 

In life's spring-bloom, 
Down to the appointed house below — 

The silent tomb. 
But now the green leaves of the tree. 
The cuckoo, and '' the busy bee," 
Keturn — ^but T\ith them bring not thee, 

Casa Wappy ! 
'T is so ; but can it be — while flowers 

EeA-ive again — 
Man's doom, in death that we and ours 

For aye remain ? 
Oh ! can it be, that, o'er the grave. 
The grass renewed should yearly wave, 
Yet God forget our child to save ? — ■ 

Casa Wappy ! 
It cannot be ; for were it so 

Thus man could die, 
Life were a mockery — thought were woe— 

And truth a lie ; — 
Heaven were a coinage of the brain—- 
Eeligion fi'enzy — ^'irtue vain — 
And all our hopes to meet again, 

Casa Wappy ! 
Tlien be to us, O dear, lost child! 

With beam of love, 
A star, death's uncongenial wild 

Smiling above ! 
Soon, soon, thy little feet have trod 
The skyward path, the seraph's road, 
That led thee back from man to God, 

Casa Wappy ! 
Yet, 't is sweet balm to our despair. 

Fond, fairest boy, 
That Heaven is God's, and thou art there, 

With him in joy ; 
There past are death and all its woes ; 
There beauty's stream for ever flows ; 
And pleasure's day no sunset knows, 

Casa Wappy ! 
Farewell then — for a while, farewell — 

Pride of my heart ! 
It cannot be that long we dwell, 

Thus torn apart. 
Time's shadows like the shuttle flee; 
And, dark howe'er life's night may be, 
Beyond the grave, I'll meet with thee, 
Cassy Wappy ! 

DAVID MACBETH MOIRc 



196 



mi iiai i m liiiiiii 



N His moral tillage, God cultivates many flowers 
seemingly only for their exquisite beauty and 
fragrance. For when bathed in soft sunshine 
they have burst into blossom, then the Divine 
hand gathers them from the earthly fields to be 
kept in crystal vases in the deathless mansions 
above. Thus little children die — some in the 
sweet bud, some in the fuller blossom ; but never 
too early to make heaven fanner and sweeter with 
their immortal bloom. 

Verily, to the eye of Faith, nothing is fairer 
than the death of young children. Sight and 
sense, indeed, recoil from it. The flower that, like 
a breathing rose, filled heart and home with an 
exquisite delight, alas ! we are stricken with sore 
anguish to find its stem broken and the blossom 
gone. But unto Faith, eagle-eyed beyond mental 
vision, and winged to mount like a singing lark 
over the fading rainbow unto the blue heaven, 
even this is touchingly lovely. 
The child's earthly ministry was well done, for the rose does its work as grandly 
in blossom as the vine with its fruit. And having helped to sanctify and lift heaven- 
ward the very hearts that broke at its farewell, it has gone from this troublesome 
sphere, — ere the winds chilled or the rains stained it, leaving the world it blessed and 
the skies through which it passed still sweet with its lingering fragrance, — to its glory 
as an ever-unfolding flower in the blessed garden of God. Surely, prolonged life on 
earth hath no boon like this ! For such mortal loveliness to put on immortality — 
to rise from the carnal with so little memory of earth that the mother's cradle seemed 
to have been rocked in the house of many mansions — to have no experience of a 
w^earied mind and chilled affections, but from a child's joyous heart growing up in 
the power of an archangelic intellect — to be raptured as a blessed babe through the 
gates of Paradise — ah ! this is better than to watch as an old prophet for the car 
of fire in the Valley of Jordan. 

Charles Wadswokth, D. D. 




WOMAN'S RIGHTS. 

EVERY woman has a right to tliink 
her child the " prettiest little baby in 
the world," and it would be the greatest 
folly to deny her this right, for she would 
be sure to take it. 

Punch. 



SEASONS OF PRAYER. 

(iTpPHERE are smiles and tears in the mother's eyea 
^ For her new-born inftint before her lies. 
Oh, hour of bliss ! when the heart o'erflows 
With rapture a mother only knows ; 
Let it gush forth in words of fervent prayer; 
Let it swell up to heaven for her precious care. 

Henry Ware. 



197 



THE OPEN WINDOW. 



The Open Window. 



fflE old house by the hnclens 

Stood silent in the shade, 
And on the gravelled pathway 
The light and shadow played. 

I saw the nursery windows 

Wide open to the air ; 
But the faces of the children, 

They were no longer there. 

The large Newfoundland house-dog 

Was standing by the door ; 
He looked for his little playmates, 

Who would return no more. 

They walked not under the hndens, 
They played not in the hall ; 

But shadow, and silence, and sadness 
Were hanging over all. 

The birds sang in the branches, 

With sweet familiar tone ; 
But the voices of the children 

Will be heard in dreams alone ! 

And the boy that walked beside me, 

He could not understand 
\Miy closer in mine, ah ! closer, 

I pressed his warm, soft hand ! 

H. W. LONGFELLOW. 



SHE CAME AND "WENT. 



So if 



.^ a twig trembles, which a bird 
Lights on to smg, then leaves 
unbent, 
mv memorv thrilled and stirred ; — 



I only know she came and went. 

As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven, 
The blue dome's measureless content, 

So my soul held that moment's heaven ;- 
I only know she came and went. 

As at one bound our swift Spring heaps 
The orchards full of bloom and scent, 

So clove her May my ^vintry sleeps ; — 
I only know she came and went. 



An angel stood and met my gaze, 

Through the low doorway of my tent ; 

The tent is struck, the vision stays ; — 
I only know she came and went. 

Oh. when the room grows slowly dim, 
And when the oil is nearly spent, 

One gush of light these eyes will brim, 
Only to think she came and went. 

J A M E 



RU 



^>=o<^^o<c 



ELL LOWELL. 



Qa'By's SsQm&. 



-^- 



P/7 



H those httle, those little blue shoes ! 
Those shoes that no little feet use. 
Oh the price were high 
That those shoes would buy. 

Those little blue unused shoes ! 

For they hold the small shape of feet 
That no more their mother's eyes meet, 

That, by God's good will, 

Years since, grew still, 
And ceased from their totter so sweet. 

And oh, since that baby slept, 

So hushed, how the mother has kept, 

With a tearful pleasure, 

Tliat little dear treasure, 
And o'er them thought and wept ! 

For they mind her for evermore 
Of a patter along the floor; 

And blue eyes she sees 

Look up from her knees 
AVith the look that in life they wore. 

As they lie before her there, 
There babbles from chau* to chair 
A little sweet face 
That's a gleam in the place, 
With its httle gold curls of hau\ 

Then oh, wonder not that her heart 
From all else would rather jDart 

Than those tiny blue shoes 

That no little feet use. 
And whose sight makes such fond tears 
start ! 

WILLIAM C. BENNETT. 



198 




r %.(i 



4^ Q» 



^to\ie)-^^2e^-feV2>^ 





E had black 
eyes with long 
lashes, red 
#y cheeks, and 
hair almost 
black and almost 
curly. He wore 
a crimson plaid 
jacket, with full 
trowsers, buttoned 
on ; had a habit 
of whistling, and 
liked to ask ques- 
tions ; was accompanied by a small, black 
dog. It is a long while now since he dis- 
appeared. I have a very pleasant house 
and much company. My guests say, 
" Ah ! it is pleasant here ! Everything 
has such an orderly, put-away look — 
nothing under foot, no dirt !'' 

But my eyes are aching for the sight of 
whittlings and cut paper upon the floor, 
of tumble- down card-houses, of wooden 
sheep and cattle, of pop-guns, bov/s and 
arrows, whips, tops, go-carts, blocks, and 
trumpery. I want to see boats a rigging, 
and kites a making, crumbles on the car- 
pet, and paste spilt on the kitchen table. 
I want to see the chairs and tables turned 
the wrong way about. I want to see candy- 
making and corn-popping, and to find 
jack-knives and fish-hooks among my 
muslins. Yet these things used to fret me 
once. 

They say, '^ How quiet you are here ! 
Ah ! one here may settle his brains, and 
be at peace." But my ears are aching for 
the pattering of little feet, for a hearty 
shout, a shrill whistle, a gay tra la la, for 
the crack of little whips, for the noise of 



drums, fifes, and tin trumpets ; yet these 
things made me nervous once. 

They say, " Ah ! you have leisure — 
nothing to disturb you ; what heaps of 
sewing you have time for !" But I long 
to be asked for a bit of string or an old 
newspaper, for a cent to buy a slate pencil 
or pea-nuts. I want to be coaxed for a 
piece of new cloth for jibs or main-sails, 
and then to hem the same. I want to 
make little flags, and bags to hold mar- 
bles. I want to be followed by little feet 
all over the house, teasing for a bit of 
dough for a little cake, or to bake a pie in 
a saucer. Yet these things used to fidget 
me once. 

They say, " Ah ! you are not tied at 
home. How delightful to be always at 
liberty to go to concerts, lectures, and 
parties! No confinement for you." 

But I want confinement. I want to 
listen for the school-bell mornings, to give 
the last hasty wash and brush, and then 
to watch from the window nimble feet 
bounding to school. I want frequent rents 
to mend, and to replace lost buttons. I 
want to obliterate mud -stains, fruit-stains, 
molasses-stains, and paints of all colors, 
I want to be sitting by a little crib of 
evenings, when weary feet are at rest, and 
prattling voices are hushed that mothers 
may sing their lullabies, and tell over the 
oft-repeated stories. They don't know 
their happiness then — those mothers. I 
didn't. All these things I called confine- 
ment once. 

A manly figure stands before me now. 
He is taller than I ; has thick, black 
whiskers, and wears a frock-coat, bosomed 
shirt, and cravat. He has just come from 



199 



BOY LOST. 



college. He brings Latin and Greek in 
his countenance, and busts of the old 
philosophers for the sitting-room. He 
calls me mother, but I am rather unwill- 
ing to own him. 

He stoutly declares that he is my boy, 
and says that he will prove it. He brings 
me a small pair of white trousers, with 
gay stripes at the sides, and asks if I didn't 
make them for him when he joined the 
boys' militia. He says he is the very boy, 
too, that made the bonfire near the barn, 
so that we came very near having a fire in 
earnest. He brings his little boat, to show 
the red strip on the sail (it was the end of 
the piece,) and the name on the stern — 
" Lucy Low " — a little girl of our neigh- 
borhood, who, because of her long curls 
and pretty round face, was the chosen 
favorite of my little boy. Her curls were 
long since cut off, and she has grown to 
be a tall, handsome girl. How the red 
comes to his face when he shows me the 
name on the boat ! Oh ! I see it all, as 
plain as if it were written in a book. My 
little boy is lost, and my big boy will soon 
be. Oh ! I wish he were a little tired boy 
in a long white night-gown, lying in his 
crib, with me sitting by, holding his hand 
in mine, pushing the curls back from his 
forehead, watching his eyelids droop, and 
listening to his deep breathing. 

If I only had my little boy again, how 
patient I would be ! How much I would 
bear, and how little I would fret and 
scold ! I can never have him back again ; 
but there are still many mothers who 
haven't yet lost their little boys. I won- 
der if they know they are living their very 
best days — that now is the time to really 
enjoy their children, I think if I had been 
^ more to my little boy, I might now be 
more to my grown-up one. 



WHEN the baby died, we said, 
With a sudden, secret dread » 
'^ Death, be merciful, and pass ; — 
Leave the other !" — but alas ! 

While we watched he waited there, 
One foot on the golden stair, 
One hand beckoning at the gate, 
Till the home was desolate. 

Friends say, '^It is better so. 
Clothed in innocence to go;'' 
Say, to ease the parting pain, 
That " your loss is but their gain." 

Ah ! the parents think of this ! 
But remember more the kiss 
From the little rose-red lips ; 
And the print of finger-tips. 

Left upon the broken toy. 
Will remind them how the boy 
And his sister charmed the days 
With their pretty, winsome ways. 

Only time can give relief 
To the weary, lonesome grief: 
God's sweet minister of pain 
Then shall sing of loss and gain. 

NORA PERRY. 



Let no fond sire a boy's ambition trust 
To make him study, let him see he must. 

CR AB B E. 



IT is with youth as with plants ; from 
the first fruits they bear we learn 
what may be expected of them in the 



future. 



DEMO PHI LUS, 



200 




<^^^^^ 



USH, my dear ! Lie still and 

slumber ! 
Holy angels guard thy bed ! 
Heavenly blessings without 

number, 
Gently falling on thy head. 

Sleep, my babe! thy food 

and raiment, 
House and home, thy 
friends provide ; 
All without thy care or payment, 
All thy wants are well supplied. 

How much better thou'rt attended 

Than the son of God could be, 
WTien from heaven Pie descended, 

And became a child like thee ! 

Soft and easy is thy cradle : 
Coarse and hard thy Saviour lay, 

When His birthplace was a stable 
And His softest bed was hay. 

Blessed Babe ! what glorious features, — 

Spotless fair, divinely bright ! 
Must He dwell with brutal creatures ? 

How could angels bear the sight ? 

Was there nothing but a manger 

Cursed sinners could afford, 
To receive the heavenly stranger? 

Did they thus affront the Lord ? 

Soft, my child ! I did not chide thee, 
Though my song might sound too hard ; 

'Tis thy mother sits beside thee, 
And her arm shall be thy guard. 

Yet to read the shameful story. 

How the Jews abused their King, 
How they served the Lord of glory, 

Makes me angry while I sing. 

See the kinder shepherds round Him, 

Telling wonders from the sky ! 
Where they sought Him, there they found Him, 

With His virgin mother by. 

See the lovely babe a-dressing ; 

Lovely Infant, how He smiled ! 
W^hen He wept. His mother's blessing 

Sooth'd and hush'd the holy Child. 



Lo, He slumbers in a manger, 

Where the horned oxen fed : — 
Peace, my darling, here's no danger : 

There's no ox a-near thy bed. 

'Twas to save thee, child, from dying. 
Save my dear from burning flame, 

Bitter groans and endless crying, 
That thy blest Eedeemer came. 

May'st thou live to know and fear Him, 
Trust and love Him all thy days. 

Then go dwell for ever near Him ; 
See His face, and sing His praise I 

I could give thee thousand kisses ! 

Hoping what I most desire. 
Not a mother's fondest wishes 

Can to greater joys aspire ! 

ISAAC WATTS. 



GOLDEN-TRESSED ADELAIDE. 

A SONG FOR A CHILD. 

O^ ING, I pray, a little song, 
,^\ Mother dear ! 

^tr Neither sad nor very long : 
It is for a little maid, 
Golden tressed Adelaide ! 
Therefore let it suit a merry, merry ear, 
Mother dear ! 

Let it be a merry strain, 

Mother dear! 
Shunning e'en the thought of pain : 
For our gentle child will weep 
If the theme be dark and deep ; 
And we will not draw a single, single tear, 

Mother dear ! 

Childhood should be all divine, 

Mother dear ! 
And like an endless summer shine ; 
Gay as Edward's shouts and cries, 
Bright as Agnes' azure eyes : 
Therefore bid thy song be merry : — dost 
thou hear, 

Mother dear ? 



VAN WALLER PROCTER 



201 



TWO 


SCHOOL BOYS. 



TWO SCHOOL BOYS. 

rPHB MOr^NING SONG. 



(^^jiUwO school-boys on their way to 

'Jl school 

^^Hy I day by day was meetmg; 

▼ Yet though I met them day by day, 
We each and all pursued our way, 
Nor exchanged a friendly greeting. 

At last I got to nod and smile, 

To smile they, too, were willing ; 
And then I used to stop and stand, 
And often shake them by the hand, 
And sometimes tip a shilling. 

Till it became a daily treat 

To meet these morning scholars : 
[ loved to see their merry looks, 
Though schoolward bound, with bag of 

books, 
Bright cheeks, and shining collars. 

Soon came the summer holidays, 
And when they were half over, 

T took a trip to Germany, 

And three months passed away ere I 
Recrossed the straits of Dover. 

Again I took that old, old walk — 
What time the leaves were yellow. 

The autumn day was ver}^ still — 

Just at the bottom of the hill 
I met one little fellow. 

He hailed me with a joj- ful cry 

Of joy fullest delectation : 
I laughed to see him laughing so. 
" But Where's our friend ?" " What ! don't 
you know? 

He died in the vacation." 

How was it that I turned aside, 
With rough, abruptest bearing? 

No matter ; on the instant I 

Turned off, nor even said, " Good-bye," 
And left the youngster staring. 



S 



ING, little daughter, sing ; 

Sing me your morning song, 
Thanking our Father for His love 
And care the whole night long. 



Sing out with cheerful heart, 
Sing out with cheerful voice ; 

The tones of gratitude to God 
Will make my heart rejoice. 

Thank Him for parents dear, 
Thy father and thy mother ; 

Thank Him for little sister Bess, 
Thank Him for little brother. 

Thank Him for pleasant home. 
Thank Him for many a friend, 
For mercies which we can not count 
For mercies without end. 

Thank Him for health and strength. 
Thank Him for clothes and food. 

Thank Him for light and the fresh air, 
Thank Him for every good. 

Thank Him for pleasant days. 
For sunshine and for showers. 

For the green grass and lofty trees. 
And for the fair wild flowers. 

Thank Him, oh, most of all. 

For His most Holy Word, 
Wherein we read the wondrous love 

Of Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Thank Him that Christ has died 

That we might die to sin ; 
Thank Him that Christ is risen again, 

That we His heaven may win. 

Sing, little daughter, sing; 

Sing forth with heart and voice, 
Thanking the Lord for all His gifts; 

Rejoice, my child, rejoice. 



202 



MY bo}^, do you know th(^ boy I love ? 
I fancy I see him now ; 
His forehead bare in the sweet spring 
air, 
A"\^ith the wind of hope in his waving hair, 
With sunrise on liis brow. 

He is something near your height, may be, 

And just about your years ; 
Timid as you ; but his will is strong, 
And his love of right and his hate of wrong 
Are mightier than his fears. 

He has the courage of simple truth. 

The trail that he must bear ; 
The peril, the ghost that frights him most, 
He faces boldly, and like a ghost 
It vanishes in air. 

As wild-fowl take, by river and lake, 

The sunshine and the rain. 
With cheerful, constant hardihood, 
He meets the bad luck and the good, 
The pleasure and the pain. 

Come friends in need ? With heart and deed 

He gives himself to them. 
He has the grace which reverence lends — 
Reverence, the crowning flower that bends. 

The upright lily-stem. 

Though deep and strong his sense of wrong. 

Fiery his blood and young, 
His spirit is gentle, his heart is great, 
He is swift to pardon and slow to hate. 
And master of his tongue. 

Fond of his sports ? No merrier lad's 

Sweet laughter ever rang ! 
But he is so generous and so frank. 
His wildest wit, or his maddest prank, 

Can never cause a pang. 

His own sweet ease, all things that please. 

He loves, like any boy ; 
But fosters a prudent fortitude ; 
Nor will he squander a future good 

To buy a fleeting joy. 



Face brown or fair ? I little care 

Whatever the hue may be. 
Or whether his eyes are dark or light ; 
If his tongue be true and his honor bright, 

He is still the boy for me. 

Where does he dwell? I can not tell; 

Nor do I know his name. 
Or poor or rich ? I don't mind which ; 
Or learning Latin, or digging ditch, 

I love him all the the same. 

With high, brave heart, perform your part. 

Be noble and kind as he ; 
Then, some fair morning, when you pass, 
Fresh from glad dreams, before your glass, 

His likeness you may see. 

You are puzzled ? What ! you think there 
is not 

A boy like him — surmise 
That he is only a bright ideal ? 
But you have power to make him real, 

And clothe him to our eyes. 

You have rightly guessed : in each pure 
breast 

Is his abiding-place. 
Then let your own true life portray 
His beauty, and blossom day by day 

With something of his grace. 

J. T. TROWBRIDGE. 



GHIJLDHOOn. 

CTfc ^N my poor mind it is most sweet to muse 
^ I Upon the days gone by; to act in thought 
yjl I Past seasons o'er, and be again a chikl ; 
f To sit in fancy on the turf-clad sk^pe 
Down which the chikl would roll ; to pluck 

gay flowers, 
Make posies in the sun, which the child's hand 
(Childhood off'ended soon, soon reconciled) 
Would throw away, and straight take up again, 
Then flinti: them to the winds, and o'er the lawn 
Bound with so playful and so light a foot, 
That the pressed daisy scarce declined her 

head. charles lamb. 



203 



Q. 



PATCHWORK 




^^ITTLE Miss Margery sits and 
sews ; 
Painfully creaking her needle 
>Qirtjm==r^ goes, 

As the moist little fingers push it through. 
Such a long stint she has got to do ? 
"What is the good," she says with a sigh, 
" Of making more quilts to just lay by ? 

"Up in the press lies row on row; 

Who are they for? I should like to know? 

'You'll be glad some day,' says Aunt 

Pauline, 
'That you made so many.' What can she 

mean? 
Pretty white spreads, I think, look best ; 
And, anyway, little girls want some rest." 

The small brass thimble gleefully rolled 
(Margery likes to play 'tis gold). 
Scissors and spool with a clatter fell ; 
Solemn old clock, now don't you tell ! 
Over the sill see Margery lean. 
Heedless of patchwork and Aunt Pauline. 

Clover-heads with their horns of honey. 
Daisies with gold and silver money, 
Strings of strawberries yet to be, 
Yellow butterflies, gay and free. 
Sun and wind, and a chance to play,— 
All these scarcely a rod away. 

She knows she could find a four-leaved 

clover 
Before she has hunted the field half over ; 
And, oh ! by the way that sparrow flew. 
She must have a nest there, certain true ! 
Only a thin white wall between ! — 
When suddenly in walked Aunt Pauline. 

The high-backed chair grew straighter still, 
The clock began to tick with a will, 
Even the foolish half-moon face 
Checked itself in a broad grimace, 
While a vagrant bee who was buzzzing 

through 
Out of the window quickly flew. 



Guilty Margery, quite aghast, 
Straightens up and sews very fast. 
But all in vain, however she tries. 
To cheat for a moment those keen eyes 
Under their spectacles looking through 
Body and soul — and patchwork, too. 

"What is the matter," she asks, "to-day? 
You want to go out in the field and play? 
If I were so silly I wouldn't have told — 
A great big girl nearly twelve years old. 
Let me see your work. Well, I do declare, 
'T would disgrace a baby, Margery Ware! 

"It must all come out. Here, take this pin; 
Sit beside me, while you begin. 
Remember you must not leave your seat 
Until it is done all true and neat. 
You'll be thankful yet that you learned 

to sew," 
With a glance at Margery's face of woe. 

'' When I was a girl," says Aunt Pauline, 
"An idle minute was seldom seen; 
You've no idea of the pains we'd take. 
Our beautiful patchwork squares to make. 
For prints were precious and thread was 

high. 
And little enough could our parents buy. 

" You could sew if you only tried; 
What in the world do you see outside ? 
Grass wants cutting ; the corn looks dry ; 
Signs of rain, I think, in the sky. 
Carefully, child, don't hurry so, 
Set your stitches exact and slow.'* 

Margery swings her restless feet, 
Clover blossoms do smell so sweet; 
Smooth little finger-tips grow rough, 
Won't she ever have done enough ? 
Well, she must bear it while she's small ; 
Grown-up folks needn't sew at all. 

LUCY D. WIGGIN. 



204 



^, 



IhRIST MLESSmG &TTLB JShILDRBN^ 




I HEN were there brought unto 
him little cliildren, that he 
should put his hands on them, 
and pray : and the disciples 
rebuked them. 

" But Jesus said, Suffer little 
children, and forbid them not, 
to come unto me ; for of such 
is the kingdom of heaven." — 
Matthew xix. 13, 14. 
At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, say- 
ing, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven ? 

" And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set 
him in the midst of them, 

" And said. Verily, I say unto you. Except ye be con- 
verted and become as little children, ye shall not enter 
into the kingdom of heaven. 

" Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself as this 
little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of 
heaven." — Matthevv xviii. 1-4. 

The errand upon earth was well nigh clone. 
A little more, and that dread passer-on — 
Time, that not even at the Cross stood still — 
Must come, with Calvary's ninth hour. And Christ 
Turn'd tow'rd Jerusalem. Galilee was sweet 
With its fair Mount, that was the step of heaven — 
(Whereon He had but just now stood, and through 
The door flung open to the throne of God, 
Drank strength in the transfiguring light) — and 

here 
Dwelt Mary, holy mother ; and 'twas here 
His childhood had been passed ; and here the life 
E'en Christ must learn to love, to be '' like us," 
Had been most sweet to him. But not where life 
So gently beautiful is known — oh, not 
Where Nature with her calm rebuke is heard — 
Could the Great Wrong be done ! in Mammon's 

mart — 
The crowded city, where the small, still voice 
Is, like the leaf's low whisper, overborne — 
Where the dark shadow, which before us falls 
When we are turning from the light away, 
8eems at another's feet and not our own — 
Where, 'mid the multitude's bewildering shout. 
Anguish may moan unheeded and even 
Lama sabadhani go up unheard — 
There, only, could the Son of God be slain ! 
And when to His disciples Jesus said 
** Behold, we go up to Jerusalem," 
Then turned His path from peaceful Galilee . 
Thence — to the scourge, the buffet, and the scorn. 
Gethsemane's last conflict, and the Cross — 
The meek first step to Calvary was there ! 



And Christ passed over Jordan, to the coast 
Of populous Judea; and there came 
Multitudes to Him, listening as He taught, 
And wondering at His miracles; for loJ 
His calm word healed all sicknesses ; the blind 
Kose up and gazed upon the luminous brow 
Whose glory had shone through their darkened 

lids; 
The dumb spoke ; the leper became clean ; 
And devils were cast out which had defied 
The word of His disciples. With new awe, 
Touched with compassionating love, looked these 
Upon their Master now ; for, near at hand, 
They felt the shadow of His coming hour. 
And though His face shone, with the strength new 

given 
By the celestial sacrament of light 
Upon the Mount administered, they still 
Trembled, as men, for One who, as a man. 
Must pass through death — death of such agony 
As for a world's transgressions might atone — 
Whose bitter cup even the Son of God 
Must shrink from with a prayer that it might pass ! 

Christ had told o'er His sorrows, to the end. 
They knew what must befall. In silence sad, 
Listened the Twelve, while jeered the Pharisee, 
And tempted Him the Scribe — for so must He 
To His last victory come ; but eager still, 
Looked they where they might minister to Him, 
Or, watchfully, from that dark path of woe. 
Pluck out the needless thorn. 

The eventide 
Found Him among His questioners — the same ; 
Patient and meek as in the morning hour — 
And while the Scribes, with His mild answers 

foiled, 
Sat by and reasoned in their hearts, behold 
There was a stir in the close multitude, 
And voices pleaded to come nigh ; and, straight. 
The crowd divided, and a mother came, 
Holding her babe before her, and on Christ 
Fixing her moist eyes steadfastly. He turned, 
Benignant, as she tremblingly came near; 
And the sad earnestness His face had worn 
While He disputed with the crafty scribes. 
Was touched with the foreshadowing of a smile. 
And, lo! another, and another still, 
Led by this sweet encouragement to come, 
Pressed where the first had made her trusting way ; 
And soon, a fair young company they stood — 



205 



CHRIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDBEK 



A band, who (by a lamp of love, new lit, 
And fed by oil of tenderness from Heaven — 
By recognition, instinct as the eye 
To know, 'mid clouds, the twinkle of a star — 
By mother's love) knew what most holiest be, 
And where to bring their children to be blest. 
And as Christ looked upon them, where they stood, 
And each would lay her infant in His arms, 
' To see it there, and know that He had borne 
Her burden on His bosom, there rose up 
Some of the Twelve ; and, mindful of the night, 
And of the trials of the weary day, 
They came between, and bade them to depart, 
And trouble not the Master. Then did Christ 
Eeproving His disciples, call again 
The mothers they had turned from Him away. 
And, leaning gently tow'rd them as they came, 
Tenderly took the babes into His arms. 
And laid His hand upon their foreheads fair, 
And blest them, saying : Suffer them 1^0 come ; 
For, in my Father's kingdom, such are they. 
Whoso is humble as a little child. 
The same is greatest in the courts of heaven. 
Spotless is infancy, we fondly feel. 
Angels in heaven are like it, He hath said. 
Mothers have dreamed the smile upon the lips 
Of slumbering babes to be the memory 
Of a bright world they come from ; and that, here, 
*Mid the temptations of this fallen star, 
They bide the trial for a loftier sphere — 
Ever progressing. Fearfully, if so. 
Give we, to childhood, guidance for high heaven I 
But, be this lofty vision as it may, 
Christ Uest them, here. And, oh ! if in the hour 
Of His first steps to Calvary, and 'mid 
The tempters, who. He knew, had just begun 
The wrongs that were to lead Him to the cross ; 
If here, 'mid weariness and gathering woe. 
The heart of Christ turned meltingly to them, 
And, for a harsh word to these little ones, 
Though uttered but with sheltering care for Him, 
He spoke rebukingly to those He loved — 
If babes thus pure and priceless were to Christ — • 
Holy, indeed, the trust to whom they're given ! 
Sacred are they ! N. P. Willis. 




l[|lf*HEEKS as soft as July peaches; 
Lips whose dewy scarlet teaches 
Poppies paleness ; large round eyes 
Ever great with new surprise ; 
Minutes filled with shadeless gladness: 
Minutes just "as brimmed with sadness; 
Happy smiles and wailing cries ; 



Crows and laughs and tearful eyes ; 
Lights and shadows, swifter born 
Than on wind-swept autumn corn ; 
Ever some new tiny notion, 
Making every limb all motion ; 
Catchings up of legs and arms ; 
Thro wings back and small alarms ; 
Clutching fingers ; straightening jerks; 
Twining feet whose each toe works ; 
Kickings up and straining risings; 
Mother's ever new surprisings ; 
Hands all wants and looks all wonder 
At all things the heavens under ; 
Tiny scorns of mild reprovings 
That have more of love than lovings ; 
Mischiefs done with such a winning 
Archness that we prize such sinning; 
Breakings dire of plates and glasses ; 
Graspings small at all that passes ; 
Puilings off of all that's able 
To be caught from tray or table ; 
Silences — small meditations 
Deep as thoughts of cares for nations 
Breaking into wisest speeches 
In a tongue that nothing teaches ; 
All the thoughts of whose possessing 
Must be wooed to light by guessing ; 
Slumbers — such sweet angel-seemings 
That we'd ever have such dreamings ; 
Till from sleep we see thee breaking, 
And we'd always have thee waking ; 
Wealth for which we know no measure ; 
Pleasure high above all pleasure ; 
Gladness brimming over gladness ; 
Joy in care ; delight in sadness ; 
Loveliness beyond completeness ; 
Sweetness distancing all sweetness ; 
Beauty all that beauty may be ; — - 
That's May Bennett ; that's my baby. 

William C. Benitett. 




bo-z-I3:oo:d. 

thea how sweetly closed those crowded 
days! 
The minutes parting one by one like rays. 
That fade upon a summer's eve. 

But, oh ! Avhat charm or magic numbers 
Can give me back the gentle slumbers 
Those weary, happy days did leave ? 
When by my bed I saw my mother kneel, 
And with her blessing took her nightly kiss; 
Whatever Time destroys, he cannot this — 
E'en now that nameless kiss I feel. 

Washington ALLSToar 



206 




^^ OOM, gentle flowers ! my child 
would pass to heaven ! 
Ye look'd not for her yet with 
your soft eyes, 
watchful usher at Death's nar- 
row door ! 
But lo! while you delay to let 

her forth, 
Angels, beyond, stay for her I One 
long kiss 
From lips all pale with agony, and tears, 
Wrung after anguish had dried up with fire 
The eyes that wept them, were the cup of life , 
Held as a welcome to her. AVeep ! oh mother ! 
But not that from this cup of bitterness 
A cherub of the sky has turn'd away. 

One look upon thy face ere thou depart I 
My daughter ! It is soon to let thee go ! 
My daughter ! With thy birth has gush'd a spring 
I knew not of — filling my heart with tears, 
And turning with strange tenderness to thee — 
A love — oh God ! it seems so — that must flow 
Far as thou fleest, and 'twixt heaven and me, 
Henceforward, be a bright and yearning chain 
Drawing me after thee ! And so, farewell ! 

'Tis a harsh world, in which affection knows 

Xo place to treasure up its loved and lost 

But the foul grave! Thou, who so late wast 

sleeping 
Warm in the close fold of a mother's heart 
Scarce from her breast a single pulse receiving 
But it was sent thee with some tender thought. 
How can I leave thee — here ! Alas for man ! 
The herb in its humility may fall 
And waste into the bright and genial air, 
While we — by hands that minister'd in life 
Nothing but love to us — are thrust away — 
The earth flung in upon our just cold bosoms. 
And the warm sunshine trodden out forever ! 

Yet have I chosen for thy grave, my child, 
A bank where I have lain in summer hours. 
And thought how little it would seem like death 
To sleep amid such loveliness. The brook, 
Tripping with laughter down the rocky steps 
That lead up to thy bed, w^ould still trip on, 
Breaking the dread hush of the mourners gone ; 
The birds are never silent that build here. 
Trying to sing down the niore vocal waters. 
The slqpe is beautiful with moss and flowers, 
And fiir below, seen under arching leaves, 
Glitters the warm sun on the village spire, 



Pointing the living after thee. And this 
Seems like a comfort; and, replacing now 
The flowers that have made room for thee, I go 
To whisper the same peace to her who lies — 
Kobb'd of her child and lonely. 'Tis the work 
Of many a dark hour, and of many a prayer, 
To bring the heart back from an infant gone. 
Hope must give o'er, and busy fancy blot 
The images from all the silent rooms, 
And every sight and sound familiar to her 
Undo its sweetest link — and so at last 
The fountain — ^that, once struck, must flow for- 
ever — 
Will hide and waste in silence. When the smile 
Steals to her pallid lip again, and spring 
Wakens the birds above thee, we will come. 
And, standing by thy music-haunted grave, 
Look on each other cheerfully, and say : — 
A child that we have loved has gone to heaven, 
And by this gate of flowers she passed away ! 

N. P. Willis. 

^ OJTLY Jl SOY. 

f,XLY a boy, with his noise and fun, 
' The veriest mystery under the sun ; 
^. As brimful of mischief and wit and glee 
^ As ever a human frame can be, 
And as hard to manage as — ah ! ah me I 
'Tis hard to tell ; 
Yet we love him well. 

Only a boy, with his fearful tread, 
Who can not be driven, but must be led ; 
Who troubles the neighbors' dogs and cats. 
And tears more clothes, and spoils more hata, 
Loses more tops and kites and bats, 

Than would stock a store 

For a year or more. 

Only a boy, with his wild, strange ways ; 
With his idle hours on busy days ; 
With his queer remarks and odd replies, 
Sometimes foolish, and sometimes wise ; 
Often brilliant, for one of his size, 

As a meteor hurled 

From a pleasant world. 

Only a boy, who will be a man, 
If nature goes on with her first great plan ; 
If fire or water, or some fatal snare, 
Conspire not to rob us of this our heir. 
Our blessing, our trouble, our rest, our care, 
Our torment, our joy — 
" Only a boy." 
207 




m THE BAREFOOT BOY. 



^^iLESSINGSonthee, 
little man, 
Barefoot boy, with 

cheek of tan ! 
With thy turned up 

pantaloons. 
And thy merry 

whistled tunes ; 
With thy red lips, 
redder still, 
Kissed by strawberries on the hill ; 
With the sunshine on thy face, 
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace ; 
From my heart I give thee joy — 
I was once a barefoot boy. 
Prince thou art — the grown up man 
Only a republican ; 
Let the million-dollared ride ! 
Barefoot, trudging at his side. 
Thou hast more than he can buy, 
In the reach of ear and eye ; 
Outward sunshine, inward joy : 
Blessings on thee, barefoot boy I 

O, for boyhood's painless play. 
Sleep that wakes in laughing day. 
Health that mocks the doctor's rules, 
Knowledge never learned of schools. 
Of the wild bee's morning chase. 
Of the wild flower's time and place, 
Flight of fowl and habitude 
Of the tenants of the wood ; 
How the tortoise bears his shell. 
How the woodchuck digs his cell. 
And the ground mole sinks his well , 
How the robin feeds her young. 
How the oriole's nest is hung; 
Where the whitest lilies blow, 
Where the freshest berries grow, 
Where the groundnut trails its vine. 
Where the wood grape's clusters shine ; 
Of the black wasp's canning way. 
Mason of his walls of clay. 
And the architectural plans 
Of gray hornet artisans ! 
For, eschewing books and tasks. 
Nature answers all he asks ; 
Hand in hand with her he walks, 
Face to face with her he talks. 
Part and parcel of her joy, 
Blessings on the barefoot boy I 

0, for boyhood's time of June, 
Crowding years in one brief moon, 
When all things I heard or saw, 
Me, their master, waited for. 



I was rich in flowers and trees, 
Humming-birds and honey-bees; 
For my sport the squirrel played, 
Plied the snouted mole his spade ; 
For my taste the blackberry cone 
Purpled over hedge and stone ; 
Laughed the brook for my delight 
Through the day and through the night, 
Whispering at the garden wall, 
Talked with me from fall to fall ; 
Mine the sand rimmed pickerel pond. 
Mine the walnut slope beyond. 
Mine, on bending orchard trees, 
Apples of Hesperides ! 
Still, as my horizon grew. 
Larger grew my riches too ; 
All the world I saw or knew 
Seemed a complex Chinese toy. 
Fashioned for a barefoot boy I 

O, for festal dainties spread, 
Like my bowl of milk and bread. 
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood. 
On the door-stone gray and rude ; 
O'er me, like a regal tent, 
Cloudy-ribbed the sunset bent, 
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, 
Looped in many a wind-swung fold j 
While for music came the play 
Of the pied frog's orchestra ; 
And, to light the noisy choir. 
Lit the fly his lamp of fire. 
I was monarch ; pomp and joy 
Waited on the barefoot boy ! 

Cheerily, then, my little man. 
Live and laugh, as boyhood can ! 
Though the flinty slopes be hard. 
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward. 
Every morn shall lead thee through 
Fresh baptisms of the dew ; 
Every evening from thy feet 
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat ; 
All too soon these feet mu&t hide 
In the prison cells of pride, 
Lose the freedom of the sod, 
Like a colt's for work be shod. 
Made to tread the mills of toil, 
Up and down in ceaseless moil ; 
Happy if their track be found 
Never on forbidden ground ; 
Happy if they sink not in 
Quick and treacherous sands of sin. 
Ah I that thou couldst know the joy. 
Ere it passes, barefoot boy ! 

J. G. Whittii* 



208 




HE sang so wildly, did the boy, 
That you could never tell 
If ^t was a madman's voice you heard, 
Or if the spirit of a bird 
Within his heart did dwell — 
A bird that dallies with his voice 
Among the matted branches ; 
Or on the free blue air his note, 
To pierce, and fall, and rise, and float, 
"With bolder utterance launches. 
None ever was so sweet as he. 
The boy that wildly sang to me ; 
Though toilsome was the way and long. 
He led me, not to lose the song. 

But when again we stood below 

The unhidden sky, his feet 

Grew slacker, and his note more slow, 

But more than doubly sweet. 

He led me then a little way 

Athwart the barren moor, 

And there he stayed, and bade me stay. 

Beside a cottage door ; 

I could have stayed of my own will. 

In truth, my eye and heart to fill 

With the sweet sight which I saw there, 

At the dwelling of the cottager. 

A little in the doorway sitting, 
The mother plied her busy knitting; 
And her cheek so softly smiled. 
You might be sure, although her gaze 
Was on the meshes of the lace. 
Yet her thoughts were with her child. 



But when the boy had heard her voice, 
As o'er her work she did rejoice, 
U 



His became silent altogether ; 
And slyly creeping by the wall. 
He seized a single plume, let fall 
By some wild bird of longest feather ; 
And all a-tremble with his freak, 
He touched her lightly on the cheek. 

Oh what a loveliness her eyes 
Gather in that one moment's space, 
While peeping round the post she spies 
Her darling's laughing face ! 
Oh mother's love is glorifying. 
On the cheek like sunset lying ; 
In the eyes a moistened light. 
Softer than the moon at night ! 

THOMAS BURBIDGE. 



♦^FORCHilRLIE'S+SllKE^ 



THE night is late, the house is still ; 
The angels of the hour fulfil 
Their tender ministries, and move 
From couch to couch, in cares of love. 
They drop into thy dreams, sweet wife, 
The happiest smile of Charlie's life, 
And lay on baby's lips a kiss. 
Fresh from his angel-brother's bliss; 
And, as they pass, they seem to make 
A strange, dim hymn, "For Charlie's 
sake." 

My listening heart takes up the strain. 
And gives it to the night again. 
Fitted with words of lowly praise, 
And patience learned of mournful days, 
And memories of ihe dead child's ways. 



200 



FOR CHARLIES SAKE. 



His will be done, His will be done ! 
Who gave and took away my son, 
In '^ the far land ^' to shine and sing 
Before the Beautiful, the King, 
Who every day doth Christmas make, 
All starred and belled for Charlie's sake. 

For Charlie's sake I will arise ; 
I will anoint me where he lies. 
And change my raiment, and go in 
To the Lord's house, and leave my sin 
Without, and seat me at his board. 
Eat, and be glad, and praise the Lord. 
For wherefore should I fast and weep, 
And sullen moods of mourning keep ? 
I cannot bring him back, nor he. 
For any calling come to me. 
The bond the angel Death did sign, 
God sealed — for Charlie's sake, and mine. 

I'm very poor — this slender stone 

Marks all the narrow field I own; 

Yet, patient husbandman, I till 

With faith and prayers, that precious hill, 

Sow it with penitential pains, 

And, hopeful, wait the latter rains ; 

Content if, after all, the spot 

Yield barely one forget-me-not — 

Whether or figs or thistles make 

My crop, content for Charlie's sake. 

I have no houses, builded well — 

Only that little lonesome cell, 

Where never romping playmates come. 

Nor bashful sweethearts, cunning-dumb — 

An April burst of girls and boys. 

Their rainbowed cloud of glooms and joys 

Born with their songs, gone with their toys; 

Kor ever is its stillness stirred 

By purr of cat, or chirp of bird. 

Or mother's twilight legend, told 

Of Horner's pie, or Tiddlar's gold. 

Or fairy hobbling to the door. 

Red-clothed and weird, banned and poor, 



To bless the good child's gracious eyes, 
The good child's wistful charities. 
And crippled changeling's hunch to make 
Dance on his crutch, for good child's sake. 

How is it with the child ? 'Tis well ; 

Nor would I any miracle 

Might stir my sleeper's tranquil trance, 

Or plague his painless countenance : 

I would not any seer might place 

His staif on my immortal's face, 

Or lip to lip, and eye to eye, 

Charm back his pale mortality. 

No, Shunammite ! I would not break 

God's stillness. Let them weep who wake. 

For Charlie's sake my lot is blest : 
No comfort like his mother's breast. 
No praise like her's ; no charm expressed 
In fairest forms hath half her zest. 
For Charlie's sake this bird's caressed, 
That death left lonely in the nest ; 
For Charlie's sake my heart is dressed, 
As for its birthday, in its best ; 
For Charlie's sake we leave the rest 
To Him Avho gave, and who did take, 
And saved us twice, for Charlie's sake. 

JOHN WILLIAMSON PALMER 



The Reconciliation. 



^ 



AS through the land at eve we went, 
And plucked the ripened ears. 
We fell out, my wife and I, — 
Oh, we fell out, I know not why. 
And kissed again Avith tears. 

For when we came where lies the child 

We lost in other years. 
There above the little grave. 
Oh, there above the little grave. 

We kissed again with tears. 



ALFREP TEN^^YSON. 



210 



■-iTHEiDEHFlCHILD^^ 



^^HE is my only girl : 

I ask'cl for her as some most precious 
thing, 

For all unfinish'd was love's jewel'd ring- 
Till set with this soft pearl : 
The shade that time brought forth I could not 

see; 
How pure, how perfect, seem'd the gift to me ! 

Oh, many a soft, old tune 
I used to sing unto that deaden'd ear, 
And sufTer'd not the lightest footstep near 

Lest she might Avake too soon, 
And hush'd her brothers' laughter while she 

lay— 
Ah, needless care! I might have let tjiem 
play! 

'Twas long ere I believed 
That this one daughter might not speak to 

me : 
Waited and watch'd. God knows how 
patiently ! 
How willingly deceived ! 
Vain Love was long the untiring nurse of 

Faith, 
And tended Hope until it starved to death. 

Oh if she could but hear 
For one short hour, till I her tongue might 

• teach 
To call me mother, in the broken speech 

That thrills the mother's ear! 
Alas ! those seal'd lips never may be stirr'd 
To the deep music \^')f that lovely word. 

My heart it sore\v tries 
To see her kneel, witl\^such a reverent air, 
Beside her brothers, at their evening prayer . 

Or lift those earnest eyes 
To watch our lips, as though our words she 

knew, — 
Then move her own, as she were speaking too; 

I've watch'd her looking up 
To the bright wonder of a sunset sky, 
With such a depth of meaning in her eye, 

That I could ahnost hope 
The struggling soul Avould burst its binding 

cords, 
And the long pent-up thoughts flow forth in 
words. 

The song of bird and bee. 
The chorus of the breezes, streams and groves, 
All the grand music to which Nature moves, 



Are wasted melody 
To her ; the world of sound a nameless void, 
AVhile even Silence hath its charms destroy'd. 

Her face is very fair : 
Her blue eyes beautiful : of finest mould 
The soft, white brow, o'er which in waves of 
gold 

Ripples her shining hair. 
Alas! this lovely temple closed must be; 
For He who made it keeps the master-key. 

Wills He the mind within 
Should from earth's Babel-clamor be kept free. 
E'en that His still small voice and step 
might be 
Heard at its inner shrine. 
Through that deep hush of soul, with clearer 

thrill? 
Then should I grieve ? Oh murmuring heart 
be still ! 

She seems to have a sense 
Of quiet gladness in her noiseless play. 
She hath a pleasant smile, a gentle way. 

Whose voiceless eloquence 
Touches all hearts, though I had once the fear 
That even her father would not care for her. 

Thank God it is not so ! 
And when his sons are playing merrily, 
She comes and leans her head upon his knee. 

Oh, at such times I know. 
By his full eye and tones subdued and mild. 
How his heart yearns over his silent child. 

Not of all gifts bereft, 
Even now. How could I say she did not 

speak ? 
\Vhat real language lights her eye and cheek, 

And renders thanks to Him who left 
Unto her soul yet open avenues 
For joy to enter, and for love to use ! 

And God in love doth give 
To her defect a beauty of its own : 
And we a deeper tenderness have known. 

Through that for which we grieve. 
Yet shall the seal be melted from her ear, 
Yes, and my voice shall fill it — but not here 

When that new sense is given, 
"What rapture will its first experience be, 
That never woke to meaner melody 

Than the rich songs of Heaven — 
To hear the full-toned anthem swelling round, 
Wliile angels teach the ecstacies of sound ! 



211 



THE ORIGIN OF DIMPLES. 



irtgm 



A $impl 



t%. 



^^^^^^^^pY mischief-loving maiden Bell ! 

^ Sit here and and listen while I tell- 
Awhile your saucy tongue to tame — 
A pretty tale without a name, 
Save this, of "How the Dimples Came." 

A merry girl, the story goes, 

With eyes of violet, cheeks of rose, 

One day, with feet that noiseless stepp'd 

Behind her lover, tiptoe crept ; 

And peep'd with many a bow and bend, 

While he, all unsuspecting, penn'd 

A timorous sonnet to the maid, 

Wliich doubted, hoped, despaired and prayed. 

She peep'd and read, too pleased by half. 

And smiled, and smiled, but durst not laugh ; 

And so a strange event occurred ; 

It happen'd thus as I have heard ; 

The dainty mouth, too small, I doubt, 

To let so much of smiling out, 

Became a prison most secure, 

And held the loving legions sure. 

Wearied, at length, of durance vile, 

Impatient grew each captive smile ; 

Still, fain some outlet new to seek. 

They wreathed and coil'd in either cheek, 

Still at the ruby portals fast, 

Vainly sought exit, and at last 

Grown desperate, so the story closes, 

Cleft a new passage through the roses I 

Love's kiss half heal'd the tender harm, 
And gave the wound its dearest charm ; 
Since not unthankful. Beauty keeps 
Her cheek less sacred than her lips, 
And while they smile their prudent "No," 
So fair the deepening dimples show, 
That Love, reminded of his claim, 
May take the guerdon without blame ; 
And this is how the dimples came. 



G^ 



\NDFATHERS 



B 



ARN. 



H, don't you remember our grandfather's 
barn, 
Where our cousins and we met to play : 
How we climbed on the beams and the scaf- 
folds high, 



Or tumbled at will on the hay ? 
How we sat in a row on the bundles of straw, 

And riddles and witch stories told. 
While the sunshine came in tlarough the cracks 
of the south, 

And turned all the dust into gold ? 

How we played hide-and-seek in each cranny 
and nook, 

^Vherever a child could be stowed ; 
Then we made us a coach of a hogshead of rye, 

And on it to "Boston " we rode? 
And then we kept store, and sold barley and 
oats. 

And corn by the bushel or bin ; 
And straw for our sisters to braid into hats, 

j^nd flax, for our mothers to spin. 

Then we played we were biddies, and cackled 
and crowed. 
Till grandmother in haste came to see 
If the weasles were killing the old speckled hen. 

Or whatever the matter might be ; 
How she patted our heads when she saw her 
mistake. 
And called us her sweet " chicken-dears ! " 
While a tear dimmed her eye as the picture 
recalled 
The scenes of her own vanished years. 

How we tittered and swung, and played meet- 
ing and school, 
And Indian, and soldier, and bear ! 
'W'liile up on the rafters the swallows kept 
house, 
Or sailed through the soft summer air. 
How we longed to peep into their curious 
nests ! 
But they were too far overhead; 
So we wished we were giants, or winged like 
the birds. 
And then we'd do wonders, we said. 

And don't you remember the racket we made 

When selling at auction the hay ; 
And how we wound up with a keel-over leap 

From the scaffold down into the bay ? 
When we went in to supper, our grandfather 
said. 

If he had not once been a boy. 
He should thought that the Hessians were 
sacking the town, 

Or an earthquake had come to destroy. 



212 



YOUR arms are folded tight about your 
little boy, 
His golden head leans close upon your 
breast, 
A smile is on the lips that softly sing 
Your baby to his rest. 

Thy arms are empty quite, one lonely hand 
Clasps tightly round its dreary, dreary mate, 

My bosom heaves at no soft baby touch ; 
It only throbs against a bitter fate. 

Yet, as you dream and brood o'er future goods. 
O'er honors bright and golden joys, 

My heart goes planning on in self same mood 
The glowing future of my boys. 

For in my mother's heart they live alway. 

Daily I hear the patter of their feet, 
Daily I hear them laugh and shout at play. 

Nightly I hear them a sweet name repeat 

That no red lips have spoken to me 
Outside this heart-world of my own. 

"Mamma" the babies lisp, and then "My 
Mother" 
Comes proudly from the larger grown. 

I softly smile when mothers proud about me 
Toss forward glowir^^ visions of my very 
boys— \ 



Gold-haired, dark-eyed, red-cheeked, gay 
darlings — 
I smile and inwardly rejoice. 

"My boys," I calmly say, "will never know 
the sorrow. 

Will never fight the fight as yours must do ; 
Will never strive, despair in that vain conflict 

That we who live on earth pass through. 

"The children of our dreams are ever as we 
wish them, 

Forever happy, safe from sins and harms. 
Them only can we shield and keep forever, 

Held safely in our tender mother-arms." 

These are my daily thoughts; but now 'tis 
even-time. 
And one great tear drops slowly in the night ; 
For lonely are these hands, this throbbing 
breast. 
My mother-arms, alas ! are empty quite. 

W . M . MASON. 



^OU shall never light upon an ill- 
natured man who was not an ill- 
natured child, and gave several testimonies 
of his being so, to discerning persons, long 
before the use of his reason. 

DR. SOUTH. 



Whom the Gods J^ove pie Joung. 




" T ]l f HOM the gods love die young,'' was said of yore, 

And many deaths do they escape by this ; 
The death of friends and that which slays even more, 

The death of Friendship, Love, Youth, all that is 
Except mere breath ; and since the silent shore 

Awaits at last even those who longest miss 
The old Archer's arrow, perhaps the early grave 

Which men weep over may be meant to save. 



LORD BYRON. 




213 



A PORTRAIT 



m 



o/i\o 



I 



" One name is Elizabeth."— Ben Johnson. 

WILL paint her as I see her, And if any poet knew her, 

Ten times have the hhes blown He would sing of her with falls 

Since she looked upon the sun. Used in lovely madrigals. 



And her face is lily-clear, 
Lily-shaped, and dropped in duty 
To the law of its own beauty. 

Oval cheeks encolored faintly, 
Which a trail of golden hair 
Keeps from fading off to air ; 

And a forehead fair and saintly. 
Which two blue eyes undershine, 
Like meek i^rayers before a shrine. 

Face and figure of a child, — 

Though too calm, you think, and tender, 
For the childhood you would lend her. 

Yet child-simple, undefiled, 
Frank, obedient, — waiting still 
On the turnings of your will. 

Moving light, as all your things, 
As young birds, or early wheat, 
When the wind blows over it. 

Only, h'ee from flutterings 

Of loud mirth that scorneth measure, — 
Taking love for her chief pleasure. 

Choosing pleasures, for the rest, 
Which come softly,— just as she, 
When she nestles at your knee. 

Quiet talk she hketh best, 
In a bower of gentle looks, — 
Watering flowers, or reading books. 

And her Toice, it murmurs lowly. 
As a silveit stream may run, 
Which yet feels, you feel, the sun. 

And her smile, it seems half holy. 
As if drawn from thoughts more far 
Than our common jestings are. 



And if any painter drew her. 
He would paint her unaware 
With a halo round the hair. 

And if reader read the poem, 

He would whisper, " You have done a 
Consecrated little Una." 

And a dreamer (did you show him 
That same picture) would exclaim, 
" 'T is my angel, with a name ! " 

And a stranger, when he sees her 
In the street even, smileth stilly, 
Just as you would at a lil}^ 

And all voices that address her 
Soften, sleeken every word, 
As if speaking to a bird. 

And all fancies yearn to cover 

The hard earth whereon she passes, 
With the thymy-scented grasses. 

And all hearts do pray, " God love her ! " — 
Ay, and always, in good sooth. 
We may all be sure He doth. 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 



^ 



^ 



WHEN the child is christened, you 
may have godfathers enough. 
When a man's need is supplied, or his 
necessities over, people are ready to offer 
their services. 

SPANISH PROVERB. 



FOR if youth be grafted straight and 
not awry, the whole commonwealth will 
flourish thereafter. 



ROGER ASCHAM, 



214 




Two little arms around a neck so white; 
Two little ruby lips that warmly kiss ; 
Two pale pink lips that, wilfully remiss, 
Strive to escape them, dodging left and right; 
Two eyes of azAire, dancing with delight. 
Bright as the sunshine, swimming o'er with 

bliss, 
Gazing into the fathomless abyss 
Of hazel eyes with soul sun-radiance bright ; 
/ 'ittle nez retrousse, though but slight 

Is its divergence from true symmetry ; 
Two tiny ears ; clusters of curls that fight 

Like warring waves ; two rosy cheeks ; a wee 
White dimpled chin ; the whole as fair a sight 
As ever mortal might expect to see ! 

So thinks the grey, grave man, who stoops 

To faster in his daughter's hair 
The rose he holds — the rose that droops 

In the warm summer air, 

And faintly breathes a perfumed prayer — 
That round the honey-sweetness at her breast 

Folds her pale petals — nestles softly there, 
And sinks to rest ! 
So in the stillness of the night, 

With folded hands, and downbent head. 
The mother in her robe of white. 

Kneeling beside her bed, 

Utters the prayer so often said — 
Then folds her sweet son fondly to her breast 

Pillowing gently there his curly head, 
And sinks to rest ! 




^^ 



■a) 



jHE voice of nature cries aloud 
in behalf of Augustus George, 
my infant son. It is for him 
that I wish to utter a few 
plaintive household words. I am not at 
all angry; I am mild — -but miserable. 

I wish to know why when my child, 
Augustus George, was expected in .our 
circle, a provision of pins was made, as if 
the little stranger was a criminal who was 
to be put to the torture immediately on 
his arrival, instead of a holy babe ? I 
wish to know why haste was made to 
stick those pins all over his innocent form, 
in every direction ? I wish to know why 
light and air are excluded from Augustus 
George, like poison ? Why, I ask, is my 
unoffending infant so hedged into a basket 
bedstead, with dimity and calico, with 
miniature sheets and blankets, that I can 
only hear him snuffle (and no wonder) 
deep down under the pink hood of a little 
bathing-machine, and can never peruse 
even so much of his lineaments as his 
nose. Was I expected to be the father 
of a French roll, that the brushes of all 
nations were laid in, to rasp Augustus 
George ? Am I to be told that this sen- 
sitive skin was ever intended by nature to 
have rashes brought out upon it, by the 
premature and incessant use of those for- 
midable little instruments ? 

Is my son a nutmeg, that he is to be 
grated on the stiff edges of sharp frills ? 
Am I the parent of a muslin boy, that his 
yielding surface is to be crimped and 
small-plaited ? Or is my child composed 
of paper or of linen, that impressions of 
the finer getting-up art, practised by the 
laundress, are to be printed off all over 
his soft arms and legs, as I constantly 
observe them? The starch enters his 



soul; who can wonder that he cries? 
Was Augustus George intended to have 
limbs, or to be born a torso ? I presume 
that limbs were the intention, as they are 
the usual practice. Then, why are my 
poor child's limbs fettered and tied up ? 
Am I to be told that there is any analogy 
between Augustus George Meek and 
Jack Shepherd ? Analyze castor oil at 
any institution of chemistry that may be 
agreed upon, and inform me what resem- 
blance in taste it bears to that natural 
provision which it is at once the pride and 
duty of Maria Jane to administer to 
Augustus George ? Yet I charge Mrs. 
Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) 
with systematically forcing castor oil on 
my innocent son, from the first hour of 
his birth. AVhen that medicine, in its 
efficient action, causes internal disturb- 
ance to Augustus George, I charge Mrs. 
Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) 
with insanely and inconsistently adminis- 
tering opium to allay the storm she has 
raised ! W^hat is the meaning of this ? 

If the days of Egyptian mummies are 
past, how dare Mrs. Prodgit require for 
the use of my son an amount of flannel 
and linen that would carpet my humble 
roof? Do I wonder that she requires it? 
]^o ! This morning, within an hour, I 
beheld this agonizing sight. I beheld my 
son — Augustus George — in Mrs. Prodgit's 
hands, and on Mrs. Prodgit's knee, being 
dressed. He was at the moment, com- 
paratively speaking, in a state of nature, 
having nothing on but an extremely short 
shirt, remarkably disproportionate to the 
length of his usual outer garments. 
Trailing from Mrs. Prodgit's lap, on the 
floor, was a long narrow roller or bandage 
— I should say of several yards in extent. 



216 



MR. MEEK'S BABY, 



In this I saw Mrs. Prodgit tightly roll 
the body of my unoffending infant, turn- 
ing him over and over, now presenting 
his unconscious face upwards, now the 
back of his bald head, until the unnatural 
feat was accomplished, and the bandage 
secured b}* a pin, which I have every 
reason to believe entered the body of my 
only child. In this tourniquet he passes 
the present phase of his existence. Can 
I know it and smile ? 

I fear I have been betrayed into ex- 
pressing myself warmly, but I feel deeply. 
Not for myself; for Augustus George. I 
dare not interfere. Will any one ? Will 
any publication? Any doctor? Any 
parent? Anybody? I do not complain 
that Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by 
Mrs. Bigby) entirely alienates Maria 
Jane's affections from me, and interposes 
an impassable barrier between us. I do 
not complain of being made of no account. 
I do not want to be of any account. But 
Augustus George is a production of 
mature (I cannot think otherwise), and I 
claim that he should be treated with some 
remote reference to nature. In my opinion 
Mrs. Prodgit is from first to last a con- 
vention and a superstition. 

CHARLES DICKENS. 



ELL me not of the trim, precisely 
arranged homes where there are no 
children ; " where," as the good 
Germans have it, "the flytraps always 
hang straight on the wall"; tell me not 
of the never-disturbed nights and days, 
of the tranquil, unanxlous hearts, where 
children are not! I care not for these 
things. God sends children for another 



purpose than merely to keep up the race; 
to enlarge the hearts, to make us unselfish, 
and full of kindly sympathies and affec- 
tions ; to give our souls higher aims, and 
to call out all our faculties, to extend en- 
terprise and exertion ; to bring round our 
fireside bright faces and happy smiles, and 
loving, tender hearts. My soul blesses 
the Great Father every day, that he has 
gladdened the earth with little children. 



MARY HO WITT. 




MOTHER AND CHILD. 

iHE tie which links mother and 
child is of such pure and im- 
maculate strength as to be 
never violated except by those 
whose feelings are withered by the refin- 
ing of vitiated society. Holy, simple and 
beautiful in its construction, the emblem 
of all we can imagine of fidelity and truth, 
is the blessed tie whose value we feel in 
the cradle, and whose loss we lament on 
the verge of the very grave, where our 
mother moulders in dust and ashes. In 
all our trials, amid all our afflictions, she 
is our friend ; let the world forsake us, 
she is still by our side ; if we sin, she re- 
proves more in sorrow than in anger, nor 
can she tear us from her bosom, nor for- 
get we are her child. 

THE INFANT, 

W^ATURE'S best picture newly drawn, 
"' which time and much handling dims 
and defaces. Whose soul's white paper 
is yet unscribbled with observations of the 
world, wherewith at length it becomes a 
blurred note-book. Who yet knows no 
evil, nor hath made means by siu to be 
acquainted with misery. All the language 
he speaks is tears, aud they serve well to 
express his necessity. 



POOLE'S PARNASSUS 



217 




ThB Babi]'^ Fif^t Tooft. . 




:i£:^^;rR. and Mrs. 
Jones had jast 
finished their 
breakfast. Mr. 
Jones had 
pushed back 
his chair, 



lounge 



and 

for 
the 
and 



was looking under the 
his boots. Mrs. Jones sat at 
table, holding the infant Jones, 
niechanicallv working her forefinger in 
its mouth. Suddenly she paused in the 
motion, threw the astonished child on its 
back, turned as white as a sheet, pried 
open its mouth, and immediately gasped 
'' Ephraim I'' Mr. Jones, who was yet on 
his knees with his head under the lounge, 
at once came forth, rapping his head 
sharply on the side of the lounge as he 
did so, and getting on his feet, inquired 
what was the matter. ^' Oh Ephraim," 
said she, the tears rolling down her cheeks 
and the smiles coursing up. '^Why, what 
is it, Aramathea?" said the astonished 
Mr. Jones, smartly rubbing his head 
where it had come in contact with the 
lounge. " Baby I'"' she gasped. Mr. Jones 
turned pale and commenced to sweat. 
^'Babyl 0—0—0 Ephraim I Baby 
has — baby has got — a little toothey, oh I 
oh ! " " Xo I" screamed Mr. Jones, spread- 
ing his legs apart, dropping his chin, aud 
staring at the struggHng l>€ir with all his 
might. ^' I tell you it is," persisted Mrs. 
Jones, with a slight evidence of hysteria. 
*' Oh, it can't be ! " protested Mr. Jones, 
preparing to swear if it wasn't. " Come 
here and see for yourself," said ^Irs. 
Jones. " Open its 'ittle mousy-wousy for 
its own muzzer; that's a toody-woody; 



that's a blessed 'ittle 'ump of sugar." 
Thus conjured, the heir opened its mouth 
sufficiently for the father to thrust in his 
finger, and that gentleman having con- 
A'inced himself by the most unmistakable 
evidence that a tooth was there, immedi- 
ately kicked his hat across the room, 
buried his fist in the lounge, and declared 
with much feeling that he could lick the 
individual who would dare to intimate 
that he was not the happiest man on the 
face of the earth. Then he gave Mrs. 
Jones a hearty smack on the mouth and 
snatched up the heir, while that lady 
rushed tremblingly forth after Mrs. Sim- 
mons, who lived next door. In a moment 
Mrs. Simmons came tearing in as if she 
had been shot out of a guD, and right 
behind her came IMiss Simmons at a speed 
that indicated that she had been ejected 
from two guns. Mrs. Simmons at once 
snatched the heir from the arms of Mr. 
Jones and hurried to the window, where 
she made a careful and critical examina- 
tion of its mouth, while Mrs. Jones held 
its head, and Mr. Jones danced up and 
down the room, and snapped his fingers 
to show how calm he was. It having 
been ascertained by Mrs. Simmons that 
the tooth was a sound one, aud also that 
the strongest hopes for its future could be 
entertained on accoimt of its coming in 
the new of the moon, Mrs. Jones got out 
the necessary material, and Mr. Jones at 
once proceeded to write seven different 
letters to as many persons, unfoldiug to 
them the event of the morniug, and in- 
viting them to come on as soon as pos- 
sible. 

J. M. BAILEY. 



218 



jgoOKS AND I^EADING. 




EEALLY am in doubt 
whether or not the young 
folks ought to be congrat- 
ulated in consequence of 
the great number of juve- 
nile books which are be- 
iug placed before them 
about this time. An ex- 
cellent book is certainly 
excellent company; but 
there is a limit to all things ; and so we 
may have too many books, taking it for 
granted that all are good ones. 

You all know, that, as a general rule, 
people in America read tc»o much, and 
think too little. Reading is a benefit to 
us only when it leads to reflection. It is 
useless when it leaves no lasting im23res- 
sion on the mind ; it is icorse than useless 
if the lesson it conveys be not a really 
good one. 

Suppose you sit down to a well-furni.^hed 
table at a hotel to eat your dinner. The 
waiter hands you a bill of fare, upon 
which is printed a long list of good and 
wholesome dishes, and then quietly waits 
until you order what you wish. You are 
not expected to eat of every one, however 
attractive they may be, but rather to select 
what you like best, — enough to make a 
modest meal, — and let that suffice. 

But the selection is not all. If you 
expect to gain health and strength by your 
dinner, you must eat it in a proper man- 
ner ; that is, slowly. Otherwise nature's 
work will be imperfectly done, and your 
food become a source of bodily harm, in- 
stead of a benefit. 

Now, it is precisely so with the food of 
the mind, which comes to you through 



books. You are not expected to read 
everything which comes within your reach. 
You should rather select the best, and, 
having done so, read them slowly and care- 
fully. You may read too much as well as 
eat too much ; and while the one w411 in- 
jure your body, the other will as certainly 
harm your mind. 

One of the worst evils which too much 
reading leads to is a habit of reading to 
forget, A^ou know what a bad habit is, 
how it clings to us, when once contracted, 
and how hard it is to be shaken off. Some 
boys and girls read a book entirely through 
in a single evening, and the next day are 
eagerly at work on another, to be as quick- 
ly mastered. Xo mind, however strong, 
can stand such a strain. A^ou see at once 
that it would be absolutely impossible for 
them to remember what they read. And 
so they read for a momentary enjoyment, 
and gradually fall into the habit I have 
spoken of — reading to forget. I need not 
tell you that such a habit is fatal to any 
very high position in life. 

How often we hear parents boast that 
their children are ^' great readers,'' just as 
if their intelligence should, in their opin- 
ion, be measured by the number of books 
and papers which they had read ! Xeed 
I say, that, on the contrary, they are ob- 
jects of pity? 

But how much may we read with profit? 
That is a question not always easy to an- 
swer. Some can read a great deal more 
than others. Yet, if young people read 
slowly, and think a great deal about the 
subject, there is very little danger of their 
reading too much, provided they select 
only good books ; because good books are 



219 



BOOKS AND READING. 



very scarce — much more so In proportion 
to the number printed than they were 
twenty years ago ; and there are very few 
young persons Avho have too great a sup- 
ply of good works placed within their 
reach. 

I have mentioned one evil which results 
from too much reading, and will only 
briefly allude to another equally import- 
ant. Children who attend school have no 
time to devote to worthless books. Their 
studies consume many hours. If, aside 
from the time which should be devoted to 
play, to their meals, and the various duties 
of home, they will read a useless book 
every day or two, their health is sure to 
suifer. The evil consequences may not be 
at once apparent, but in later years the 
penalty * will certainly have to be paid. 
This reflection alone, if there were no 
other reason, should induce the young to 
discard all useless books, and read only 
such as shall have a tendency to make 
them wiser and better. 



M!ME,J^mB QF wmm Wmm'Pm&w. 



|E were crowded in the cabin, 
Not a soul would dare to sleep, — 
It was midnight on the waters 
And a storm was on the deep. 

'T is a fearful thing in Winter 
To be shattered by the blast, 
And to hear the rattling trumpet 
Thunder : " Cut away the mast ! " 

So we shuddered there in silence, — 
For the stoutest held his breath. 
While the hungry sea was roaring. 
And the breakers talked with Death. 

As thus we sat in darkness, 
Each one busy in his prayers, 



^^ We are lost ! ^' the captain shouted 
As he staggered down the stairs. 

But his little daughter whispered, 
As she took his icy hand : 
" Is n't God upon the ocean 
Just the same as on the land ?'' 

Then we kissed the little maiden, 
And we spoke in better cheer. 
And we anchored safe in harbor 
When the morn was shining clear. 

JAMES T. FIELDS, 




¥E IRE SEVEN. 

^p" SIMPLE child, 

That lightly draws its breath, 
And feels its life in every hmb. 
What should it know of death f 

I met a little cottage girl : 

She was eight years old she said, 

Her hair was thick with many a curl 
That clustered round her head. 

She had a rustic, woodland air, 

And she was wildly clad ; 
Her eyes were fair, and very fair ; — 

Her beauty made me glad. 

" Sisters and brothers, little maid, 

How many may you be ? " 
"How many? Seven in all," she said, 

And wondering looked at me. 

"And where are they? I pray you tell." 
She answered: "Seven are we; 

And two of us at Conway dwell, 
And two are gone to' sea. 

" Two of us in the churchyard lie. 

My sister and my brother ; 
And, in the churchyard cottage, I 

Dwell near them with my mother.** 

" You say that two at Conway dwell, 

And two are gone to sea. 
Yet ye are seven ! I pray you tell. 

Sweet maid, how this may be." 
220 



WE ARE SEVEN. 



Then did the little maid reply : 

" Seven boys and girls are we ; 
Two of us in the churchyard lie, 

Beneath the churchyard tree." 

"You run about, my little maid; 

Your limbs they are alive ; 
If two are in the churchyard laid, 

Then ye are only five." 

"Their graves are green, they may be seen," 

The little maid replied : 
"Twelve steps or more from my mother's door, 

And they are side by side. 

" My stockings there I often knit. 

My kerchief there I hem ; 
And there upon the ground I sit. 

And sing a song to them. 

" And often after sunset, sir, 

^Vhen it is light and fair, 
I take my little porringer, 

And eat my supper there. 

" The first that died was sister Jane ; 

In bed she moaning lay, 
Till God released her of her pain ; 

And then she went away. 

" So in the churchyard she was laid ; 

And, when the grass was dry, 
Together round her grave we played, 

My brother John and I. 

" And when the ground was white with snow 

And I could run and slide, 
My brother John was forced to go, 

And he lies by her side." 

"How many are you, then," said I, 

" If they two are in heaven ?" 
Quick was the little maid's reply : 

" O Master ! we are seven." 

" But they are dead ; those two are dead I 

Their spirits are in heaven ! " 
'T was throwing words away ; for still 
The little maid would have her will, 



^Y HE bounded o'er the gravas, 
/]V With a buoyant step of mirth ; 
'tt She bounded o'er the graves, 
Where the weeping willow waves, 
Like a creature not of earth. 

Her hair was blown aside, 

And her eyes were glittering bright ; 

Her hair was blown aside, 

And her little hands spread wide. 

With an innocent delight. 

She spelt the lettered word 

That registers the dead ; 

She spelt the lettered word. 

And her busy thoughts were stirred 

With pleasure as she read. 

She stopped and culled a leaf 
Left fluttering on a rose, 
She stopped and culled a leaf, 
Sweet monument of grief. 
That in our churchyard grows. 

She culled it with a smile — 
'T was near her sister's mound : 
She culled it with a smile, 
And played ^vith it awhile. 
Then scattered it around. 

I did not chill her heart, 
Nor turn its gush to tears ; 
I did not chill her heart. 
Oh, bitter drops will start 
Full soon in coming years. 

CAROLINE OILMAN 



And said : "Nav, wo are seven 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 



TO A CHILD. 

Written in her album. 

^MALL service is true ser^'ice while it lasts : 

J^ Of humblest friends, bright creature ! 

scorn not one : 
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, 
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun. 

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 



221 



r^( 



ir-t- 



-i-^ 









ABIES i luv 
with all mi 
heart. They 
krawl into me 
and nestle by 
the side ov mi 
soul like a kit- 
ten under a 
cook-stove. 

I hav raized 
babies miself, 
and kno what i am talking about. 

I hav got grand-children, and they are 
wuss than the fust krop tew riot amung 
the feelings. 

If i could hav mi way, i would change 
all the human beings now on the face ov 
the earth back into babys at once, and 
keep them thare, and make this footstool 
one grand nussery ; but what i should do 
for wet-nusses i don't kno, nor don't care. 
I would like tew hav 15 babys now on 
mi lap, and mi lap ain't the handy est lap 
in the worl I for babys, neither. 

Mi lap iz long enuff, but not the widest 
kind ov a lap. 

I am a good deal ov a man, but i kon- 
sist ov length principally; and when i 
make a lap ov miself, it iz not a mattress, 
but more like a couple ov rails with a jint 
in them. 

I can hold more babys in mi lap at once 
than any man in Ameriki, without spilling 
one, but it hurts the babys. 

I never saw a baby in mi life that i 
didn't want tew kiss. 



I am wuss than an old maid in this re- 
spekt. 

I hav seen babys that i hav refused tew 
kiss until they had been washt ; but the 
baby want tew blame for this, neither 
waz i. 

Thare are folks in this world who say 
they don't luv babys, but yu kan depend 
upon it, when they waz babys sumboddy 
luved them. 

Babys luv me, too. I kan take them 
out ov their mothers' arms just az easy az 
i kan an unfledged bird out ov his nest. 
They luv me bckauze i luv them. 

And here let me say, for the comfort 
and consolashun ov all mothers, that when- 
ever they see me on the cars or on the 
steambote, out ov a job ; they needn't hesi- 
tate a minnit tew drop a clean, fat baby 
into mi lap. I will hold it, and kiss it, 
and be thankful besides. 

Perhaps thare iz people who don't envy 
me all this ; but it is one ov the sharp-cut, 
well-defined joys ov mi life — my luv for 
babys and their luv for me. 

Perhaps thare iz people who will call it 
a weakness. I don't kare what they call 
it — bring on the babys. Unkle Josh haz 
always a kind word and a kiss for the 
babys. 

I luv babys for the truth thare iz in 
'em. I ain't afraid their kiss will betray 
me— thare iz no frauds, ded beats, nor 
counterfits amung them. 

I wish i waz a baby, not only once 
more, but for evermore. 



222 



JOSH BILLINGS* 




Baby's Cradle Song 





WHEN sets the sun, and day is done, 
And peaceful eve hides all our care, 
When screech-owls crv and brown bats 

fly 

Through the flow'r-fragrant evening air; 
^^^len the purple hills grow dark 

Far over the dusky moor, 
And the noisy sheep-dogs bark 

By the vine-hung cottage door — 
Then, tenderly, oh, tenderly. 
While the faint lights fade and die, 
Mother, sitting baby nigh, 
Softly sings her hillaby. 

When black is night and stars shine bright, 

And wolves are howling round the fold, 
Where all asleep lie lambs and sheep, 

And winds are blowing chill and cold : 
When nought in the world is awake 

But the little tinkhng rill, 
Babbling through bush and brake, 

Dancing down from the hill^ 
Then wearily, oh, wearily. 
While the lands in slumber He, 
Mother, sitting baby nigh. 
Watches her with sleepless eye. 



When darkness dies from all the skies. 

And streaks of amber paint the east, 
When ripples wake along the lake, 

And e'en the cricket's chirp has ceased; 
^\^len the white moon fades from view, 

And over the hills afar. 
In the slowly brightening blue. 

Wanes the dim s^^:eet morning star — 
Then lo\dngly, oh, lovingly, 
\ATiile the dawn breaks o'er the sky. 
Mother, sitting baby by, 
Rocks the cradle carefully. 

When hill day breaks, and earth awake«, 

And all the birds burst into song, 
And deep and clear, past pool and mere. 

The little streamlet flows along, 
Amber, and crimson, and gold, 

Flood all the morning sky ; 
The lambs awake in the fold. 

The sparrows chirp and fly; 
While happily, oh, happily. 
As the morning wind floats by, 
Mother watches baby's eye 
Open slowly, drowsily. 



223 



LITTLE BELL. 

\ 



^ 



He prayeth well, who lovetli well 
Both man and bird and beast. 

Ancient Mariner. 

'IPED the blackbird on the beechwood 
spray : 
" Pretty maid, slow wandering this way, 
What's your name ?" quoth he — 
" What's your name ? Oh stop and straight 

unfold, 
Pretty maid with showery curls of gold," — 
" Little Bell," said she. 

Little Bell sat down beneath the rocks — 
Tossed aside her gleaming golden locks — 

" Bonn}^ bird," quoth she, 
" Sing me your best song before I go." 
" Here 's the very finest song I know, 

Little Bell," said he. 

And the blackbird piped; you never heard 
Half so gay a song from any bird — 

Full of quips and wiles, 
Now so round and rich, now soft and slow. 
All for love of that sweet face below, 

Dimpled o'er mth smiles. 

And the while the bonny bird did pour 
His full heart out freely o'er and o'er 

'Neath the morning skies, 
In the little childish heart below 
All the sweetness seemed to grow and grow. 
And shine forth in happy overflow 

From the blue, bright eyes. 

Down the dell she tripped and through the 

glade, 
Peeped the squirrel from the hazel shade. 

And from out the tree 
S-wTing, and leaped, and frolicked, void of 

fear, — 
While bold blackbird piped that all might 
hear — 
" Little Bell," piped he. 

Little Bell sat down amid the fern — 

*' Squirrel, squirrel, to your task return — 

Bring me nuts," quoth she. 
Up, away the frisky squirrel hies — 
Golden wood-lights glancing in his eyes — 

And adown the tree. 
Great ripe nuts, kissed brown by July sun, 



In the little lap, dropped one by one — 
Hark, how blackbird pipes to see the fun ! 
" Happy Bell," pipes he. 

Little Bell looked up and down the glade — = 
*' Squirrel, squirrel, if you 're not afraid, 

Come and share with me! " 
Down came squirrel eager for his fare — 
Down came bonny blackbird I declare ; 
Little Bell gave each his honest share — 

Ah the merry three ! 
And the while these frolic playmates twain 
Piped and frisked from bough to bough again. 

'Neath the morning skies. 
In the little childish heart below 
All the sweetness seemed to grow and grow, 
And shine out in happy overflow. 

From her blue, bright eyes. 

By her snow-white cot at close of day. 
Knelt sweet Bell, with folded palms to pray — 

Very calm and clear 
Rose the praying voice to where, unseen, 
In blue heaven, an angel shape serene 

Paused awhile to hear — 
*' What good child is this," the angel said, 
*' That with happy heart, beside her bed 

Prays so lovingly? " 
Low and soft, oh ! very low and soft. 
Crooned the blackbird in the orchard croft, 

" Bell, dear Bell?" crooned he. 

" Whom God's creatures love," the angel fair 
Murmured, " God doth bless -^ith angels' care; 

Child, thy bed shall be 
Folded safe from harm — Love deep and kind. 
Shall watch around and leave good gifts be- 
hind, 

Little Bell, for thee ! " | 

T. WESTWOOD.l 



Jjittle Paggage. 



'AITING at a wayside station 
For a weary hour's duration, 
Lost in anxious cogitation, 
Over this and that ; 



224 



LITTLE BAGGAGE, 



In there tripped a little maiden, 
Box and bag and basket laden, 
And beside me sat. 

Little baggage ! rich in treasure ; 
Youth and hope, and heart for pleasure, 
Sweet contentment without measure, 

All I once possessed. 
Small, fair fingers, folded quaintly. 
Blue eyes very calm and saintly. 

Very full of rest. 

Little dove of peace, I thought her, 
Bless the happy stars that brought her! 
To my care-worn heart I caught her, 

Though she never knew. 
And the dark cloud of repining 
Sudden showed its silver lining 

Bright against the blue. 

Oh, the charm of childhood's graces ! 
Changing earth's most desert places 
Into such a fair oasis, 

Fresh with morning dew ; 
That the world, grown old and dreary, 
Seems less work-a-day and weary, 

And hope wakes anew. 

Sooner can their freshness free us 
From the cares that years decree us, 
Than the fabled child of Zeus 

Could to youth restore. 
Happy who the myth believing. 
And the nectar cup receiving, 

Lives a child once more. 

EMMA SMULLER 



THE MIfHERLBSS BAIEH. 



An In verary correspondent writes : ' ' Thorn gave me the 
following narrative as to the origin of 'The Mitherless 
Bairn ': I quote his own words. ' When I was livin' in 
Aberdeen, I was limping roun' the house to my garret, 
when I heard the greetin' o' a wean. A lassie was 
thumpin' a bairn, when out cam a big dame, bellowin', 
"Ye hussie, will ye lick a mitherless bairn! " I hobbled 
up the stair and wrote the sang afore sleepin'." 

WHEN a' ither bairnies are hushed to their 
hame 
By aunty, or cousin, or freck}^ grand-dame, 
Wha stands last and lanely, an' naebody carin"? 
T is the puir doited loonie, — the mitherless 
bairn ! 



The mitherless bairn gangs to his lane bed; 
Nane covers his cauld back, or haps his bare 

head; 
His wee hackit heelies are hard as the airn, 
An' lilheless the lair o' the mitherless bairn.- 

Aneath his cauld brow siccan dreams hover 

there, 
O' hands that wont kmdly to kame his dark 

hail , 
Bnt mornin' brings clutches, a' reckless an' 

stern, 
That lo'e nae the locks o' the mitherless bairn! 

Yon sister that sang o'er his saftly rocked bed 
Now rests in the mools where her mammie is 

laid ; 
The father toils sair their wee ba*inock to earn, 
An' kens na the wrangs o' his mitherless bairn. 

Her spirit, that passed in yon hour o' his birth, 
Still watches his wearisome wanderings on 

earth ; 
Kecording in heaven the blessings they earn 
Wha couthilie deal wi' the mitherless bairn ! 

0, speak him na harshly, — he trembles the 

while, 
He bends to your bidding, and blesses your 

smile ; 
In their dark hour o' anguish the heartless 

shall learn 
That God deals the blow, for the mitherless 

bairn I 

WILLIAM THOM. 



The Good- Night Kiss. 



A' 



15 



LAY AYS send your little child to bed 
happy. Whatever cares may trouble 
your mind, give the dear child a warm 
good-night kiss as it goes to its pillow. 
The memory of this, in the stormy years 
which may be in store for the little one, 
will be like Bethlehem's star to the bewil- 
dered shepherds ; and welling up in the 
heart will rise the thought : " My father, 
my mother — loved meV Lips parched 
with fever will become dewy again at this 
thrill of useful memories. Kiss your lit- 
tle child before it goes to sleep. 



225 



THE SHEPHERD BOY. 



The Shepherd Boy. 

LIKE some \4sion olden 
Of far other time, 
When the age was golden, 
In the young world's prime, 
Is thy soft pipe ringing, 

O lonely shepherd boy : 

What song art thou singing, 

In thy youth and joy ? 

Or art thou complaining 

Of thy lowly lot, 
And thine own disdaining. 

Dost ask what thou hast not? 
Of the future dreaming, 

"Weary of the past, 
For the present scheming — 

All but what thou hast. 

Xo, thou art delighting 

In thy summer home ; 
Where the flowers inviting 

Tempt the bee to roam ; 
Where the cowslip, bending 

With its golden bells. 
Of each glad hour's ending 

With a sweet chime tells. 

All wild creatures love him 

When he is alone; 
Every bird above him 

Sings its softest tone. 
Thankful to high Heaven, 

Humble in thy joy. 
Much to thee is given. 

Lowly shepherd boy. 

LrETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON- 



TO A CHILD. 

THY memory, as a spell 
Of love, comes o'er my mind- 
As dew upon the purple bell — 
As perfume on the wind ; — 



As music on the sea — 

As sunshine on the river ; — 

So hath it always been to me, 
So shall it be forever. 

I hear thy voice in dreams 

Upon me softly call, 
Like echoes of the mountain streams, 

In sportive waterfall. 
I see thy form as when 

Thou wert a living thing, 
And blossomed in the eyes of men. 

Like any flower of spring. 

Thy soul to heaven hath fled, 

From earthly thraldom free ; 
Yet, 't is not as the dead 

That thou appear'st to me. 
In slumber I behold 

Thy form, as when on earth. 
Thy locks of waving gold. 

Thy sapphire eye of mirth. 

I hear, in solitude, 

The prattle kind and free 
Thou utter'st in jo^'ful mood 
While seated on my knee. 
So strong each vision seems 

My spirit that doth fill, 
I think not they are dreams, 

But that thou livest still. 



LITTLE TODDIE. 



r 



S it bright with summer gladness, 
Toddie dear ; 
Is there nowhere any sadness, 

Toddie dear ; 
In that land of pleasant mountains, 
Crystal rivers, silver fountains. 
In that home to which you hastened 
From the home by sorrow chastened, 
Jovless here ? 



226 



LITTLE TODD IE. 



Do the seraph-bands surround you, 
Toddieboy? 
Do the angels gather round you, 

Toddie boy ? 
Do they keep your heart from grieving 
For the mother you are leaving, 
For the mother who is groaning 
With a broken-hearted moaning 

For her boy ? 

Yes, we know that love upholds you, 

Toddie dear ; 
That a wondrous Jove enfolds you, 
Toddie dear, 
With an infinite sweet pity. 
In that shining golden city 
Little ones are crowned with blessing, 
All the Saviour's care possessing. 

There as here. 

But we loved you very dearly, 

Toddie boy ; 
And we held you very nearly, 

Toddie boy ! 
Many, many tender mothers, 
Little sisters, little brothers. 
Would be sorely grieved in spirit, 
But they know that you inherit 

Peace and joy. 

PELEG ARK WRIGHT, 



^sr-V; 



WHEN the corn-fields and meadows 
Are pearled with the dew, 
AYith the first sunny shadow 
Walks little Boy Blue. 

Oh the Nymphs and the Graces 

Still gleam on his eyes. 
And the kind fairy faces 

Look down from the skies ; 

And a secret revealing 

Of life within life. 
When feeling meets feeling 

In musical strife; 



A winding and weaving 

In flowers and in trees, 
A floating and heaving 

In sunlight and breeze ; 
A striving and soaring, 

A gladness and grace. 
Make him kneel half adoring 

The God in the place. 
Then amid the live shadows 

Of lambs at their play. 
Where the kine scent the meadows 

AVith breath like the May, 
He stands in the splendor 

That waits on the morn, 
And a music more tender 

Distils from his horn ; 
And he weeps, he rejoices, 

He prays ; nor in vain, 
For soft loving voices 

Will answer again; 
And the Nymphs and the Graces 

Still gleam through the dew, 
And kind fairy faces 

Watch little Boy Blue. 



Deathlessness of the Innocent and Good. 



THERE is nothing, no, nothing in- 
nocent and good that dies, and 
is forgotten : let us hold to that 
faith, or none. An infant, a prattling 
child, dying in the cradle, will live again 
in the better thoughts of those who loved 
it ; and play its part through them, in the 
redeeming actions of the Avorld, though 
its body be burned to ashes, or drowned 
in the deep sea. Forgotten ! Oh if the 
deeds of human creatures could be traced 
to their source, how beautiful would even 
death appear; for how much charity, 
mercy and purified affection would be seen 
to have their growth in dusty graves. 

CHARLES DICKENS. 



227 



=cr^^5^' 



:^==fe^= 



-0O 



" The name 
Which from THEIR lips seemed a caress." 

Miss Mitford's Dramatic Scenes. 



U 



HAVE a name, a little name, 
Uncadencecl for the ear, 
Unhonored by ancestral claim, 
Unsanctified by prayer and psalm 
■The solemn font anear. 



It never did, to pages vrove 

For gay romance, belong. 
It never dedicate did move 
As " Sacharissa," mito love, — 

" Orinda," unto song. 

Though I write books, it will be read 

Upon the leaves of none, 
An^l afterward, when I am dead, 
Will ne'er be graved for sight or tread, 

Across my funeral-stone. 

This name, whoever chance to call 

PerhajDS your smile may win. 
Nay, do not smile ! mine eyelids fall 
Over mine eyes, and feel T^ithal 
The sudden tears within. 

Is there a leaf that greenly grows 

Where summer meadows bloom, 
But gathereth the winter snows. 
And changeth to the hue of those, 
If lasting till they come? 

Is there a word, or jest, or game, 

But time encrusteth round 
With sad associate thoughts the same ? 
And so to me my very name 

Assumes a mournful sound. 

My brother gave that name to me 
When we were children twain, — 

When names acquired baptismally 

Were hard to utter, as to see 
That Hfe had any pain. 



No shade was on us then, save one 

Of chestnuts fi'om the hill, — 
And through the word our laugh did run 
As part thereof. The mirth being done, 

He calls me by it still. 

Nay, do not smile ! I hear in it 

AMiat none of you can hear, — 
The talk upon the willow seat, 
The bird and wind that did repeat 
Around, our human cheer. 

I hear the birthday's noisy bUss, 

My sisters' woodland glee, — 
My father's praise I did not miss, 
AVhen, stooping down, he cared to kiss 

The poet at his knee, — 

And voices which, to name rae, aye 

Their tenderest tones were keeping, — ■ 
To some I nevermore can say 
An answer, till God wij^es away 
In heaven these drops of weeping. 

My name to me a sadness wears ; 

No murmurs cross my mind. 
Now God be thanked^for these thick tears, 
"Which show, of those departed years. 

Sweet memories left behind. 

Now God be thanked for years enwrought 

With love which softens yet. 
Now God be thanked for every thought 
AVTiich is so tender it has caught 

Earth's guerdon of regret. 

Earth saddens, never shall remove. 

Affections purely given ; 
And e'en that mortal grief shall prove 
The immortality of love, 

And heighted it with Heaven. 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWN r?TG 



228 



MAMMAS KISSES. 




MAMMA'S KISSES. 



KISS when I awake in the 

morning, 
A kiss when I go to bed, 
A kiss when I burn my 
finger, 
A kiss when I bump my 
head. 



A kiss when my bath is over, 
A kiss when my bath begins ; 

My mamma is full of kisses, 
As full as nurse is of pins. 

A kiss when I play with my rattle, 
A kiss when I pull her hair; 

She covered me over with kisses 
The day I fell from the stair. 

A kiss when I give her trouble, 
A kiss when I give her joy; 

There's nothing like mamma's kisses 
For her own little baby boy. 



A. E. FAB ERS, 



.>-O^Oo<, 



CQy Baby, 



WITH frolicsome freaks, 
And rosy, red cheeks, 
My baby lies waiting for me; 
He thinks not of crying," 
But ever is trying 
To sing a glad song in his gl-ee. 

His parted lips show 

Three teeth in a row. 
As white and as precious as pearls : 

And his soft, silken hair 

O'er his forehead so fair 
Falls in dark, thick-clustering curls. 



His eyes, like two stars, 

Peep out from the bars 
Of his crib, as he watches for me, 

And his pink little toes, 

Down under the clothes, 
Are kicking about to be free. 

I'm coming, ray boy ! 

My treasure, my joy ! 
You shall wait no longer for me ; 

But we'll up and away. 

And be merry and gay. 
Out under the old maple tree. 

ELIZABETH OLMIS 



TO A CHILD EMBRACING HIS MOTHER. 




r^OVE thy mother, little one ! 

Kiss and clasp her neck again, — 
Hereafter she may have a son 
Will kiss and clasp her neck in 
vain. 
Love th}^ mother, httle one ! 

Gaze upon her liWng eyes, 

And mirror hack her love for thee, — • 
Hereafter thou may'st shudder sig\m 

To meet them when they cannot see. 
Gaze upon her living eyes ! 

Press her lips the while they glow 

With love that they have often told, — 

Hereafter thou may'st press in woe, 
And kiss them till thine own are cold. 
Press her lips the while they glow ! 

Oh, revere her raven hair! 

Although it he not silver-graj' — 
Too early Death, led on by Care, 

May snatch save one dear lock away. 
Oh, revere her raven hair ! 

Pray for her at eve and morn, 
That Heaven may long the stroke defer — 
For thou may'st live the hour forlorn 
\\^ien thou wilt ask to die with her. 
Pray for her at eve and morn ! 

THOMAS HOOD. 



229 



^im^csi 



oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 

I BEFORE AND IFTEREHOOL.;' 

cooooooocooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 



Q 



BEFORE SCHOOL. 

UARTER to nine ! 

Boys and girls, do you hear 
" One more buckwheat, then- 
Be quick, mother dear. 
Where is my luncheon-box?" — 

^' Under the shelf, 
Just in the place 

You left it yourself!" 
" I can't say my table ! '' — 

" Oh, find me my cap ! '^ 
*^ One kiss for mamma, 

And sweet Sis in her lap." 
« Be good, dear !"— " I'll try." 

"9 times 9's81," 
'' Take your mittens ! "— " All right/'- 

" Hurry up. Bill ; let's run." 
With a slam of the door 

They are off, girls and boys, 
And the mother draws breath 

In the lull of their noise. 

AFTER SCHOOL, 

" Don't wake up the baby ! * 

Come gently, my dear ! " 
Oh, mother, I've torn my 

New dress, just look here ! 
I'm sorry, I only was 

Climbing the wall." 
" Oh, mother, my map 

Was the nicest of all ! " 
" And Nelly, in spelling, 

Went up to the head ! " 
** Oh, say ! can I go out 

On the hill with my sled ? " 
" I've got such a toothache." — 

'' The teacher's unfair ! " 
*' Is dinner most ready ? 

I'm just like a bear ! " 



Be patient, worn mother 

They're growing up fast, 
9>? These nursery whirlwinds. 

Not long do they last ; 
A still, lonely house would be 

Far worse than noise ; 
Rejoice and be glad in 

Your brave girls and boys ! 



R. I. SCHOOLMASTER 



Baby's First Step. 

5 ^T^ WAS a very simple lesson, 

M So simple — yet deep and sweet. 
'Twas taught by our year-old baby, 

Whose wee little dancing feet 
Were tottering on the threshold 

Of the open nursery door. 
His bright eyes intently watching 

A new toy upon the floor. 

All untried and untested 

Were those tiny, active feet ; 
Never one step had they taken 

In nursery or on the street ; 
But the toy lay far beyond them, 

And our baby's eager eyes 
Danced, and he crowed in his gladness 

As he saw the glittering prize. 

^*Come, little boy; come and take it; 

Father will not let you fall." 
He lifted his face and listened, 

As he heard the gentle call; 
Turned his sw^eet blue eyes, and seeing 

A strong hand on either eide. 
Gathered all his faith and courage. 

And his first weak footstep tried. 



230 



^'<B\(g^^gye?J- 



rf HE turns her great grave eyes toward 
^l\ mine, 

r^ While I stroke her soft hair's gold ; 
We watched the moon through the window 
shine ; 

She is only six years old. 
"Is it true," she asks, with her guileless 
mien, 

And her voice in tender tune, 
"That nobody ever yet has seen 

The other side of the moon ? " 

I smile at her question, answering " Yes ; " 

And then, by a strange thought stirred, 
I murmur, half in forgetfulness 

That she listens to every word: 
" There are treasures on earth so rich and 
fair 

That they can not stay with us here. 
And the other side of the moon is where 

They go when they disappear ! 

" There are hopes that the spirit hardly 
names. 

And songs that it mutely sings ; 
There are good resolves, and exalted aims 

There are longings for nobler things ; 
There are sounds and visions that haunt 
our lot. 

Ere they vanish, or seem to die, 
And the other side of the moon (why not?) 

Is the far bourne where they fly ! 

"We could guess how that realm were 
passing sweet. 

And of strangely precious worth. 
If its distant reaches enshrined complete 

The incompleteness of earth ! 
If there we could find, like a living dream, 

What here we but mourn and miss. 
Oh, the other side of the moon must beam 

With a glory unknown in this ! " 



" Are you talking of Heaven ? " she whis- 
pers now. 

While she nestles against my knees. 
And I say, as I kiss her white wide brow, 

" You may call it so, if you please .... 
For whatever that wondrous land may be, 

Should we journey there, late or soon, 
Perhaps we may look down from Heaven 
and see — 

The other side of the moon ! " 

EDGAR FAUCETT. 



The Wee Bit Skoon, 



THE wee bit shoon she used to wear 
They gav me aften greet ; 
At gloamin' time could I aince mair 
But haud those pink-white feet. 

But haud those feet within my ban's, 

An' hear her ripplin' glee, 
A warl' o' houses an' o' lan's, 

Hoo empty wad they be. 

Those tiny palms, could I but taste, 

Sae aft to me stretched out, 
The earth wad be nae mair a waste. 

My heid nae whirl about. 

The curls, hauf-grown, that graced her broo. 

The glintin' o' her een. 
The tremblin' o' her matchless mou', 

Still haunt me, though unseen. 

Wad death gie back, for ane short hour, 

The lapfu' that was mine ; 
But, ah ! but, ah ! I'd hae nae power 

The treasure to resign. 

J. C. RANKIN, D. D. 



231 



FATHER AT PLAY. 



father at flay. 

— ■•<»-=^^'<>- — 

SUCH fun as we had one rainy day, 
When father was home and helped us 
play! 

We made a ship and hoisted sail, 
And crossed the sea in a fearful gale — 

But we hadn't sailed into London town, 
When captain and crew and vessel went down. 

Down, down in a jolly wreck. 

With the captain rolling under the deck. 

But he broke out again with a lion's roar, 
And we on two legs, he on four, 

Ran out of the parlor and up the stair. 
And frightened mamma and the baby there. 

So mamma said she'd be p'liceman now, 
And tried to West us. She didn't know how ! 

Then the lion laughed and forgot to roar, 
Till we chased him out of the nursery door ; 

And then he turned to a pony gay, 
And carried us all on his back away. 

Whippity, lickity, hickity ho ! 

If we hadn't fun, then I don't know ! 

Till we tumbled off and he cantered on, 
Never stopping to see if his load was gone. 

And I couldn't tell any more than he 
Which was Charlie and which was me, 

Or which was Towzer, for all in a mix 
You'd think three people had turned to six. 

Till Towzer's tail was caught in the door; 
He wouldn't hurrah with us any more. 

And mamma came out the rumpus to quiet. 
And told us a story to break up the riot. 



SOWING IN TESRS. 



CTRAIGHT and still the baby lies, 
No more smiling in his eyes, 
Neither tears nor wailing cries. 

Smiles and tears alike are done; 
He has need of neither one — 
Only, I must weep alone. 



Tiny fingers, all too slight. 
Hold within their grasping tight, 
Waxen berries scarce more white. 

Nights and days of weary pain, 
I have held them close^-in vain ; 
Now I never shall again. 

Crossed upon a silent breast, 
By no suffering distressed, 
Here they lie in marble rest ; 

They shall ne'er unfolded be, 
Never more in agony 
Cling so pleadingly to me. 

Never ! Oh, the hopeless sound 
To my heart so closely wound 
All his little being round ! 

I forget the shining crown, 

Glad exchange for cross laid down. 

Now his baby brows upon. 

Yearning sore, I only know 
I am very full of woe — 
And I want my baby so! 

Selfish heart, that thou shouldst prove 
So unworthy of the love 
Which thine idol doth remove ! 

Blinded eyes, that cannot see 

Past the present misery, 

Joy and comfort full and free ! 

O ! my Father, loving Lord ! 
I am ashamed at my own word ; 
Strength and patience me afford. 

I will yield me to thy will ; 
Now thy purposes fulfil ; 
Only help me to be still. 

Though my mother-heart shall ache, 
I believe that for thy sake 
It shall not entirely break. 

And I know I yet shall own. 
For my seeds of sorrow sown. 
Sheaves of joy around thy throne ! 



232 




HOM 




ENE, 




LOVE with your whole soul, — father 
mother and sister, — for these loves 
shall die! — Not indeed in 
thought, — God be thanked ! Nor yet in 
tears. — for he is merciful ! But they shall 
die, as the leaves die, — die, as Spring dies 
into the heat and ripeness of Summer, and 
as boyhood dies into the elasticity and 
ambition of youth. Death, Distance, and 
Time shall each one of them dig graves 
for your affections ; but this you do not 
know, nor can know till the story of your 
life is ended. 

The dreams of riches, of love, of voy- 
age, of learning that light up th^ boy age 
with splendor, will pass on and over into 
the hotter dreams of youth. Spring buds 
and blossoms, under the glowing sun of 
April, nurture at their heart those first- 
lings of fruit which the heat of summer 
shall ripen. 

You little know — and for this you may 
well thank Heaven — that you are leaving 
the Spring of life, and you are floating fast 



from the shady sources of your years into 
heat, bustle, and storm. Your dreams 
are now faint, flickering shadows, that 
play like fire-flies in the coppices of leafy 
June. They have no rule but the rule of 
infantile desire ; they have no joys to pro- 
mise greater than joys that belong to your 
passing life; they have no terrors but 
such terrors as the darkness of a Spring 
night makes. They do not take hold on 
your soul as the dreams of youth and 
manhood will do. 

Your highest hope is shadowed in a 
cheerful, boyish home. Y^ou Avish no 
friends but the friends of boyhood; no 
sister but your fond Nelly ; none to love 
better than the playful Madge. 

You forget Clarence that the Spring 
with you is the Spring with them, and 
that the storms of summer may chase wide 
shadows over your path and over theirs. 
And you forget that Summer is even now 
lowering with mist, and with its scorching 
rays, upon the hem of your flowery May. 




DONALD G. MITCHELL. 





Uik 



3S """ ' -^ -~^-^ 



23a 




BOYHOOD. 




AIR budding age, 
Which next upon life's stage 
Passest a fairy dream before the 

eyes, 
High health and bounding limb. 
Eager and stretching towards the wished-for 

prize ; 
Whate'er the passing care that takes thy 

thought, 
I catch the sweet brisk scent of trodden grass 
When through the golden afternoon 
Of a long day in June, 
Until the twilight dim, 
The play field echoes with the joyous noise 
Of troops of agile boys. 
Who, bare-armed, throw the rapid-bounding 

ball; 
Who shout and race and fall. 

I see the warm pool fringed with meadow- 
sweet. 
Where stream in summer, with eager feet 
Through gold of buttercups and crested grass, 
The gay processions stripping as they pass. 
I hear the cool and glassy depths divide 
As the bold fair young bodies, far more fair 
Than ever sculptured Nereids were. 
Plunge fearless down, or push,with front or side. 
Through the caressing wave. 

I mark the deadly chill, thro' the young blood. 
When some young life, snatched from the cruel 
flood, 



Looks once upon the flowers, the fields, the 

sun, — 
Looks once, and then is done ! 
Or the grey, frosty field, and the great ball 
Urged on by flying feet. 

Or when the skate rings on the frozen lake, 
The gliding phantoms fleet, 
Eosy with health, and laughing though they 
fall. 

Or by the rapid stream or swirling pool, 
The fisher, with his pliant wand. 

Or by the covert-side, taking his stand. 
The shooter, watching patient hour by hour 
With that hard youthful heart that young 

breasts hold. 
Till the fur glances through the brake ; 
As when our savage sires wandered of old, 
Hungering through primal wastes. I see them 

all. 
The brisk, swift days of youth, which cares for 

nought 
But for the joy of living ; scarce a thought 
Of Love, or Knowledge, or at best 
Such labor as gives zest 
To the great joy of living. Oh, blest time ! 
For which each passing hour rings out a chime 
Of joy-bells all the year ; ay, tho' through days 
Of ill thou farest, and unhappy ways ; 
Or whether on the sun-struck lands thy feet 
Are the young savage hunter's, lithe and fleet, 
Turning at night-fall to thy father's cot. 



!34 



ODE OF CHILDHOOD. 



Bathed in the full white moonlight; or dost 

stand 
'Mid the hushed plains of some forsaken 

land ; — 
Where'er thou art, oh, boyhood! thou art free 
And fresn as the young breeze in summer born 
On sun-kissed hills or on the laughing sea, 
Or gay bird-music breathing of the morn, 
Or some sweet rose-bud pearled with early dew, 
As brief and fair as you. 




GIRLHOOD. 



-4>- 




R in another channel still more 
sweet, 
Life's current flows along, 
Ere yet the tide of passion, full 
and strong, 
Hurries the maiden's fe^t. 
Oh, sweet and early girlish years 
Of innocent hopes and fears ! 
Busied with fancies bright and gay, 
Which Love shall chase away. 
When, with the flutter of celestial wings. 
He stirs the soul forth from its depths, and 

brings 
Healing from trouble. Oh, deep well 
Of fairy fancies undefiled ! 
Oh, sweet and innocent child ! 

Now with thy doll I see thee full of care, 
Or filled already with the mother's air, 
Hushing thy cliild to sleep. 



And now thyself immersed in slumbers, deep 

Yet light, I see thee he. 

And now the singer, lifting a clear voice 

In soaring hymns or carols that rejoice,. 

Or l)usied with thy seam, or douljly fair 

For the unconscious rapture of thy look 

Lost in some simple book, 

Whate'er the color of thy face, 

Thou art fulfilled with grace. 

Oh, little maiden, fair or brown ! 

Thine is the simple beauty which doth crown 

The dreams of happy fathers, who have past 

By Love and Passion, and have come 

To know pure joys of home ; 

And for the hurry and haste of younger years. 

Have taken the hearth that cheers, 

And the fair realm of duty, and delight 

Of innocent faces bright, 

And the sweet wells of feeling and white love, 

A daughter's name can move. 

In every climb and age I see thee still. 
Since the rude nomads wandered forth at will 
Upon the unbounded Aryan pastures wild- 
There thou wert, oh, fair child ! 
"The milker" 'twas they called thee; all day 

long 
Tending the browsing herds with high-voiced 

song; 
Or on some sun-warmed place 
Upon the flower-faced grass. 
Watching the old clouds joass. 
And weaving wreaths with such wild grace 
And sprightly girlish glee 
As Proserpine did once in sunny Sicily. 

Or maybe by some widowed hearth — 
The fairest, saddest sight on earth, 
Filled too soon with sweet care. 
And bringing back the voice and air 
Of thy dead mother; thou art s(>( 
An innocent virgin-mother, cliildlike yet. 
Thy baby sisters on thy loving arm 
Sleep fast, secure from harm. 
Thou hast no time for game or toy, 
Or other thought but this ; 



235 



ODE OF CFHLDHOOD. 

Who findest thy full reward, thy chiefest joy, Forlorn in haunts of misery-; 

In thy fond father's kiss. Thou keepest on thy rounded face 

Or under palms to-day, Some unforgotten trace 

Thy childhood fleets away ; Of the old primal days unsung, 

Or by the broadening shadow hid, Of the fresh breezes of pure morn 

Of tomb or pyramid ; When the first maiden child was born, 

In stainless whiteness ; or maybe And Time was young. 



jif^ AIR streams which run as yet 

^l|| Each in its separate channel from the snows; 

^-^j Boyhood and girlhood ; while Life's banks are set 
With blooms that kiss the clear lymph as it flows, 
One swift and strong and deep, 
One where the lilies sleep ; — 

Fair streams, which soon some stress of Life and Time 
Shall bring together, 

Under new magical skies and the strange weather 
Of an enchanted clime. 




236 





SPRINGTIME OF LIFE. 



a Baby 



A Better Way 

A Child .... 

A Child Praying 

A Child's Dream of a Star 

A Child's hirst Impression of a 

A Child's Mood 

A Child's Thought 

A Description of Two Babies 

A Dinner and a Kiss . 

Advanta;^'e of Children 

Advice to Children 

A Farewell 

A Father's Wish 

Against Roys 

A Graphic Description of 

A Hint . 

A Home Scene 

A Moloch of a Baby 

A Mother, but no Child 

A Mother's Joys 

A Mother s Morning Prayer 

A Mother to her New-born Child 

An April Day 

Angel Charlie 

Angels Unaw res 

Anita and Her Dolls 

Annie .... 

Annie in the Graveyard 

Answer to a Child's Questions 

An Unfini-hed Pra)er 

A Parent's Prayer 

A Patient Baby, 

A Plea for the Boy 

A Portrait 

A Question 

Are all the Children In ? . 

A Remarkable Baby 

Arc ihe Children at Home 

A Sons Kiss in the Sunshine 

A Spring Snow Storm 



Star 



Page. 

174 
44 
22 

67 
187 
104 

77 

72 

181 

42 

159 
119 

93 

174 

74 

60 

233 
184 
-13 
157 
128 

155 
31 

162 
16 
66 

164 

221 

153 

84 

97 

76 

26 

214 

174 

134 

140 

160 

215 

8 



A Sunbeam and a Shadow 
A Thought Over a Cradle 
A Wee Sang on a Wee S"bject 

Babies and Their Rights 

Baby .... 

Baby 

Baby .... 

Baby Bell 

Baby Bye 

Baby May 

Biby Louise , , 

Babys 

Baby's Cradle Song 

Baby's Day 

Baby's First Step . 

Baby's Shoes 

Baby's Toes 

Baby Thankful 

Baby Zulmas' Christmas Carol 

Ballad of the Tempest 

Baptism 

Bjd-Time 

Before and After School 

Be Gentle 

Be Kind Boys 

Benefit of Children 

Benny's Questions 

Blessings on Children 

Books and Reading 

Boyhood . 

Boyhood . , , 




Boyht 

Boyish Habits 

Boy Lost 

Boy Religion 

By the Alma River 

Calling a Boy in the Morning 

Capacity <if Children 

Casa Wappy . . , 



237 



INDEX. 



Castles in tlie Air • 

Castles in the Fire • . 

Childhood 

Childhood .... 

Childhood 

Childhood .... 

Childhood 

Childhood and His Visitors 

Childhood Eternal 

Children .... 

Childfen .... 

Children .... 

Children a Loan 

Children of the Rich and Poor 

Children's Hour 

Child's Morning Hymn 

Choosing a Name 

Christ and the Liitle Ones 

Christ Blessing Children . 

Christ Blessing Little Children 

Country Children 

Cradle Song 

Cradle Song 

Cradle Song . . • 

Cradle Song 

Cradle Hymn 

Crown of Childhood 



Danae .... 

Daisy Among the Daisies 

Death in the Cradle . 

Deathlessness of the Innocent 

DeathofaBibe 

Death of a Baby 

Death of Litile Paul . 

Demeanor Toward Children 

Devotion in Childhood 

Dewdrops Reset 

Dirge for a Young Girl 

Domestic Bliss 

Dot's Baby 

Dream My Baby 

Dull Boys .... 



Early Days 

Early Spring . . 

Education . . , 

Eva and T Msy • « 

Fanny's Mud Pies . 

Father at Play , , 

Father is Coming , . 
For Chailie's Sake . • 
For the Children 
Four Years Old 

Gates Ajar 

Girlhood .... 

Going to Bed 

Going Up .... 

Golden Tiessed Adelaide 

Good Life, Long Life . 

Good Night 

Good Night and Good Morning 

Grandfather's Barn 

Hare and Hounds , , 
Harry's Letter , , 



Contrasted 



and 



Good 



PIGE. 

52 

144 
165 
203 

83 

10 

24 
114 

185 

182 

94 
70 

97 

44 
135 
205 
108 

55 
90 

95 

144 
201 

147 

91 

1S8 

135 
227 
103 

39 
no 
102 

37 
40 

197 
Z^ 
41 
53 

140 

182 

43 
29 

85 

65 
232 

143 
209 

139 
193 

12 
235 

71 

62 
201 
158 
109 

60 
212 

190 
76 



Help Yourselves • 

Honey Nellie . . , 
How Mamma Plays . , 
How the Gates Came Ajar 
How to bring Up Children 
Human Nature 

If I could keep Her So 

Illusions 

Importance of A Child 

Influence of Early Training 

In Memoriam 

In the Cradle Boat 

Introduction to the Songs of Innocence 

Is There Room in Angel Land ? 

James Melville's Child 

Kittie is Gone . 



Lady Annie Bothwell's Lament 

Letter to a New-born Child 

Life's Happiest Period 

Lines on tb.e Death of a Child 

Little Baggage 

Little Bell 

Little Boots 

Little Boy Blue 

Little Brown Hands 

Little Charlie . 

Little Children 

Little Children 

Little Feet . 

Little Gulden Hair 

Little Home- Body 

Little Mary's Secret 

Little Miss Meddlesome 

Littleness 

Little Red Riding Hood 

Little Toddie . 

Little Tyrant 

Little \Villie \Vaking Up 

Loss and Gain 

Lucy 

Lullaby 

Lulu's Complaint 



Mamma's Kisses . 

Mamma's Story 

May . . . . 

May Day 

Measuring the Baby 

Memories of Childhood 

Mother and Child 

Mother and Child 

Mother Goose 

Mother's Love . 

Mr. Meek's Baby 

My Baby . 

My Baby 

My Baby 

My Beautiful Child 

My Bird . 

My Boy 

My Boy 

My Child . 

My Mother 

My Mother's Stories 



238 



INDEX, 



My Playmates . , . • 

My Sermon .... 

No Age Content with Its Own Estate 
No Baby in the House . • 

"Not Lost, but Gone Before" 
Nurse's Watch 

Ode of Childhood, 

OfiF for Boyland 

One by One 

Only a Boy 

On the Death of Child 

On the Death ot an Infant 

On the Picture of a Child Tired of Play 

On the Picture of an Infant Playing ne 

Precipice .... 
On Witnessing a Baptism , 
Our Babes .... 

Our Baby .... 
Our Baby .... 

Our Baby .... 
Our Dear Ones . . • 

Our First Born • , . 
Our Lambs .... 
Our Wee White Rose 

Patch Work .... 
Paying Her Way 
Philip My King . . . 

Pictures of Memory . . 
Planting Piimself to Grow 
Precocity of Intellect in Children 
Prayers of Children _ . 
Recollections of Boyhood 
Romance of a Swan's Nest • 

Sad Remembrance of Childhood 

Safe Folded .... 

Sailing the Boats 

Season Divine .... 

Seasons of Prayer 

Seven Times One . . 

Shadows on the Wall . 

Shall the Baby Stay . 

She Came and Went . 

Slumber Song 

Some Mother's Child . . 

Sowing in Tears • • • 

Stormy Day Party . 

Such Fun .... 

Sufferings of Childhood , 

Suffer Them to Come . , . 

Sunday Night . . • 

Sunshine in the House . , 

Sweet and Low 

Sweet Babe .... 

Sweet Baby Sleep 

Swinging on a Birch Tree . . 

Take Care of the Children ^ 
Telling a Story . . , 

Thanks to You . . , 
That Little Hat . . . 
The Adopted Child 
'I'he Angel's Whisper • 
The Babe .... 
The Babie .... 

The Baby I Love . . 

The Baby's First Tooth 



PAGE. 

72 
91 

^Z 
149 

191 
152 

234 

174 

80 

207 

131 

62 

97 

187 

75 
6 

82 
122 
165 

53 
177 
161 

204 
176 

75 
138 

73 
153 
104 
188 
150 
181 

94 
148 
208 
197 
180 

59 
198 
III 
130 
232 

79 
195 
141 

70 
80 
18 

161 
99 

175 

53 
169 

64 
100 

88 

50 

7 

102 

50 
218 



PAGE. 



The Bald-headed Tyrant 




15s 


The Bare Foot Boy 


, , 


208 


The Battle of Life 




154 


The Bird Catcher 




90 


The Blind Boy . 




92 


The Boy I Love 




203 


The Boy's Appeal 




58 


The Charge of Infantry 




166 


The Child Asleep 




139 


The Child and the Mourners 




2)1 


The Child Poet . 




10 


The Children . 




57 


The Children 




59 


The Children's Bed-Time 




191 


The Christening 




82 


The Comfort of a Child 




. . 165 


The Cry of the Children . 




• 106 


The Dead Boy 




49 


The Dearest Baby . 




75 


The Deaf Child 




211 


The Death of Children . 




197 


The Education of Children 




• 158 


The Fairy Child 




124 


The Faults of Children 




• 151 


The Gambols of Children . 




29 


The Golden Age 




• 157 


The Goodnight Ki>s . 




225 


The Good Ship •' Never Fail' 


> 


. 64 


The Greek Boy . 




77 


The Hallowed Drawer 




• 151 


The Higher Purpose of Children . 


217 


The Household Sovereign . 


, , 


. 186 


The Idle Shepherd Boys . 


, 


116 


The Infant .... 


. , 


^Zl 


The Infant 


. 


217 


The Kitten and the Falling Leaves 


123 


The Lesson 


, , 


29 


The Little Black Boy . 


. , 


129 


The Little Boy That Died . 


, 


149 


The Little Cavalier 


, . 


108 


The Little Children 


, 


. 160 


The Little Clothes in the Drawer 


170 


The Little Giil'^ Wonder . 




57 


The Lost Little One 




192 


The Minuet 




. 168 


The Mitherless Bairn 




225 


The Mother as Teacher 




17 


The Mother's Cradle Song 




85 


Tlie Mother's Heart 




• "3 


The Mother's Hope 




131 


The Mother's Sacrifice • 




154 


The Mother to Her Child 




172 


The Morning Glory 




. 12S 


The Morning Song 




202 


The Naughty Bairn . • 




. 189 


The New Comer 




95 


The Nursery . . • 




. 182 


The Nurse's Song 




73 


The Ode of Infancy . 




5 


The Open Window . 




19S 


The Origin of Dimples 




212 


The Other Side of the Moon 




231 


The Pet Name 




. 22S 


The Pet Lamb 




142 


The Play House 




. 58 


The Poor Man's Riches . 




42 


The Queen in Her Carriage Is 


Riding E 


5y . 122 


The Reconciliation . • 




210 



239 



INDEX. 



The Ride in a Wheelb«rrow 

The Rights of Children . 
The School Boy . 
"These are My Jewels" 
The Shepherd Boy , 
The Sportive Boy . 
The Sunday Baby , 

The Sweetest Spot . 
The Three Sons . 

The Torn Hat 
The Two Year Old 
The Wee Bit Shoon 
The Widow and Child 
The Widow's Lullaby 
They Planted Her 
Th's Baby of Ours . . . . 

Thoughts while Making the Grave of 
New-born Child . . , , 

Thoughts while She Rocks the Cradle 

Threnodia 

Threnody . ... 

Tc a Child 

To a Child .... 

To a Child ..... 
To a Child During Sickness 
To a Child Embracing His Mother 
To Arthur Asleep . • 

To a Sleeping Child . , . , 
To Ferdinand Seymour • • 

To George . . . • • 



PAGE. 

92 

176 

190 

134 
226 

157 

^ 92 

55 

45 

56 

7 

231 

24 

178 

64 

55 

207 

15 
129 

125 
119 
221 

226 
167 
229 
39 
117 

«»II2 
114 



To H. C. . . . . . ^"^^2 

ToJ.H ^g 

To Laura, Two Years of Age . v 

To My Daughrer . . . . . ' ^^ 

To the Cuckoo .... q^ 

Touch Not * i^s 

Two School Boys . . . , , 202 

Two Years Old j^r 

Under My Window , , , ' , % '^Zl 



Vacation 



We Are Seven 

Whit Are Children 

What Does Little Birdie Say ? 

What Education Comprises 

What's a Boy Like? .... 

What the Christ Spirit Said to the Children 

When We were Children . . . . 

Which shal it Be ? 

Whom the Gods Love Die Young 

Who Would be a Boy Again . e . 

Willie's Prayer 

Willie Winkie 

Woman's Crown 

Woman's Rights . . , , 



Ye Ballad of Christmas 



n2 



220 

32 

159 

158 

175 

187 

II 

78 

213 

168 

156 

102 

10 

197 

65 




240 






M^. 



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WAITING FOR THE LOVER. 



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THE 

SUMMER 

OF 



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THE 

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There is nothing can equal the tender hours when life is first in bloom ; 
When the heart, like a bee in a wild of flowers, finds everywhere perfume ; 
When the present is all, and it questions not if those flowers shall pass away, 
But pleased with its own delightful lot, dreams never of decay. 



How beautiful is youth ! how bright it gleams 
With its illusions, aspirations, dreams ! 
Book of Beginning, Story without End, 
Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend. 

H.W. LONGFELLOW 



The youth whose bark is guided o'er 

A summer stream by zephyr's breath, 
With idle gaze delights to pore 

On imaged skies that glow beneath. 

WM. LEGGETT, 



The morning of life is like the dawn of day, full of purity, of imagery, and 
■liarmony. Chateaubriand. 



I would not waste my spring of youth 

In idle dalliance : I would plant rich seeds, 

To blossom in my manhood, and bear fruit when I am old. 

.ilLLHOUSE. 

Be affable and courteous in youth, that 
You may be honored in age. 

LILLY. 



Youth ! youth ! how buoyant are thy hopes, they turn 
Like marigolds, toward the sunny side. 

JEAN IN GELOW. 



Oh happy youth ! and favor'd of the skies. 
Distinguished care of guardian deities. 



POPE. 



In the morn and liquid dew of youth 
Contagious blastments are most imminent. 

S HAKES PEA RE. 



Youth comes but once in a lifetime. 

H. W. LONGFELLOW 



What is youth ? — A dancing billow, winds behind, and rocks before ! 

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 

2 




THE ODE OF YOUTH. 



HJOW upon the tree of life there rise 

III Before our wondering eyes 

J Two strange new flowers of varied 

hue. 
The tree is grown, 
The flowers are blown, 
There is nought wanting to its early 

sweetness ; 
But with a full completeness, 
The purple bloom and white 
Fill the entranced, admiring sight. 
The tree is grown, the tree is strong; 
Oh! dear to art and song! 
Fair time of Flowers! within whose 

chalice sweet 
Lurks Youth with rosy feet, 



And Love with purple folded wing, 
And birdlike thoughts that sins:. 



EARLY MANHOOD. 

IT XD first, oh youth, I see thee with the 
lA phi me 

lA Of thy thick locks upon thy forehead set, 
XAikI tliy frank eyes kiiidliiiu- witli th-e, 
or dim 
With soaring thoughts of heaven, or wet 
With kindly dews of pity; the straight limb 
And the strong arm, and force tliat never 

tires; 
Tlie cheek and lip t<^uched with the eaiiy down 
Of manhood's fullest crown; 
The heart, which hardly thought of piUssiou 
fires; 



THE ODE OF YOUTH. 



The mind, which opens like a flower in spring 

To all the wanton airs the seasons bring; — 

The young existence self-contained no longer, 

But pressing outward hour by hour, 

Fired with a thirst continually stronger, 

For some supreme white flower. 

Whatever be the prize — 

Whether upon the dilTiculL heights of Thought, 

Or 'midst the white laborious dust of Duty, 

Or on the peaks of Power, the bloom be sought, 

Or in the flush and thrill of the new Beauty 

Born of a maiden's eyes. 

Oh. happiest age of all! 

When hope is without measure, 

And life a thrill of pleasure. 

And health is high and force unspent, 

Nor Disappointment yet, nor sordid Care, 

Nor yet Satiety, nor the cold chill 

Which creeps upon the world-worn heart to 

kill 
All higher hope, and leaves us to despair. 
No doubt of God or men can touch, but all 
The garden ground of Life is opened wide; 
And lo! on every side 
The flowers of spring are blooming, and the 

air 
Is scented, and sweet song is everywhere, 
And young eyes read from an enchanted 

book, 
With rapt entranced look, 
Love's legend and the Dream of days to be. 
And fables fair of Life's mythology. 
Rapt hour by hour till dewy twilight fall. 



Whatever be the page — ■ 

Whether on metaphysical riddles faint, 

Or the rapt visions of some far-off" seer, 

The burning thoughts of saint, 

Or maxims of the sage — 

Thou comest, oh youth, with thought as sure, 

With mind severe and i)ure; 

Thou takest afresh, with each returning year. 

The fair thin dreams, the philosophic lore 

Of the great names of yore — 

Plato the wise, Confucius, Socrates, 

The blest Gautama — all are thine — ; 

Upon thee year hy year the words divine 

Of our great Masl(>!', tailing like the dew, 

Fill thee, to hate the wrong, to love the true; 

For thee the fair poetic i)age is spread 

Of the great living and the greater dead; 

For thee the glorious gains of Science lie 

Stretched open to thine eye; 



And to thy fresh and iindimmed brain, 
The mysteries of Nature and of Space 
Seem easy to explain ; 

Thou lookest with clear gaze upon the long 
Confusions of the Race, the paradox of 

W>ong ; 
And dost not fear to trace, 
With youth's strong fiery faith that knows no 

chill. 
The secret of Transgression, the prime source 
Of Good and Evil, and the unfailing course 
Of the Ineffable Will. 
And sometimes life, glowing with too fierc ♦ 

fire. 
O'er sea and land in rapid chase. 
Snatches thee with tumultuous will, 
And careless, breathless pace. 
Sometimes a subtle flame 
Comes on thee, as a shadow of night, 
Marring thy young life's white. 
And some strange thrill thou knowest without 

a name. 
And at thy side shamefast Desire 
Stands unreproved and guides thy bashful feet 
To wdiere, girt by dim depths of solitude, 
Sits Fancy, disarrayed, in a deep wood ; 
And oh, but the youth runs swift and pleasure 

is sweet! 
And sometimes, too, looking with too bold eye 
Upon the unclouded sky, 
Sudden the heavens are hidden, and the great 

Sun 
Sinks as if day were done, 
And the brain reels and all the life grows faint, 
Smitten by too much light; or a thick haze 
Born out of sense doth overcloud 
The soul, and leaves it blind and in amaze, 
And the young heart is dull and tlie young 

brain 
Dark till God shine again. • 

Oh, fairest age of all ! 

Whate'er thy race or clime, 

To-day ten thousand cities on thee call. 

Broad plain and palm-fringed isle. 

Thine is the swelling life, the eager glanov 

and smile. 
Oh, precious fruit of Life and Time! 
Oh, worker of the world ! to whose young arm 
The brute earth yields and wrong, as to a 

charm ; 
Young seaman, soldier, student, toiler at the 

plough, 



THE ODE OF YOUTH, 



Or loom, or forge, or mine, a kingly growth 

art thou ! 
Where'er thou art, though earthy oft and 

coarse. 
Thou bearest with thee hidden s])rings of 

force, 
Creative power, the flower, tlic fruitful strife, 
The germ, the potency of Life, 
Wliicli draws all things to thee unwittingly, 
The Future lies within thy loins, and all the 

Days to be 
To thee Time giveth to beget, 
The Thought that shall redeem and lift man 

higher yet. 

MAIDENHOOD. 

BUT lo! another form appears 
Ux3on the glass. Oh, pure and white! 
Oh, delicate and bright! 
Oh, primal growth of Time! 
Sweet maidenhood ! that to a silvery chime 
Of nuisic, and chaste fancies undefded, 
And modest grace and mild, 
Comest, best gift of God to men, 
As fair to-day as when 
The first man, waking from his deep 
And fancy-haunted sleep. 
Found his strength spent, and at his side 
His fair dream glorified ; 
High-soaring note, keeping the eternal song 
Through secular discords long. 
Oh, lily of Life's garden ! fair of hue 
And sweet of scent, watered with heaven's 

own dew ; 
Fair being, that boldest hidden motherhood 
And undeveloped good; 
Implicit in thee, even as white blooms hold 
Their fragrant globes of gold. 
Men know no praise they can withhold from 

thee. 
Oh, sweet virginity! 

Since Artemis first ,rod the youngling earth. 
Thou glorious and surpassing birth ! 
The Vestal fires were thine, the convents cold 
Are thine as those of old. 
To thee, when strong sweet flowers of Life and 

Sense, 
Scent gross, we turn, oh white and gracious 

innocence! 
Yea, still, while life flows fast and free. 
To thee we turn a world-worn eye. 
Throbbing delights are youth's and pulses 

high; 



Yet sometimes these will pall, and then to thee 
We turn, oh fair pale lily, clothed with purity ! 

For sure it is indeed 

Two streams through Life's ground flow, anO 

both are good — 
The one whose goal is gracious motherhood; 
Tho other in the cloister pale and dim 
Finding sufficient meed 

In pure observance, rite, and soaring hymn. 
We may not blame nor hold them wrong 
Who through their lives their licurgies 

prolong. 
Even though the prize of motherhood he 

great. 
But always thine, oh, blest estate! 
Thine it is, even in youth's hot sun, to keep 
Celestial snows and piu-e abysses dee[). 
I see thy fair expanding mind, 
A precious blossom parcel-blown, 
Kot with the young man's ardent rage, 
But with a gentler radiance all thy own. 
Fixed now on history's fabled page, 
Now on the bard"s diviner thought, 
And now by some deep music stirred. 
Deeper than any spoken word. 
Or sweet love-story soft as southern wind. 

Dear flower and fair to mortal eye. 
Whatever be thy age, thy clime, thy race, 
Whether the gentle curve of thy young breast 
Be hidden in white lawn or stand confcst 
In innocent brown nakedness and grace, 
Thou art the high and unattaincd prize 
Of all the generations that have been; 
Upon Life's throne thou sittest as a Queen, 
And at thy gracious feet 
The ages kneel to thy eternal Truth. 
Thy pure and spotless innocence. 
And free from stain of Time and Sense, 
Thy undefiled youth. 

AAHiite flower of Life's tree, 

Love like a wanton bee, 

Shall fly to thee, and from thy deep cold cell^ 

I\i(le the honey. Tranquil stream. 

That from the chill heart of the untrodden 

snow, 
So calm and clear dost flow; 
Spring wakes beneath the gleam 
Of a new sun which swells 
A warm and rapid torrent strong. 
Soon in the suimy balmy weather. 
To break its banks and bear together 
Your mingled streams along. 



w 



A PASTORAL SONG. 



HERE, in a meadow bright with dew, 
A little brooklet w^anders through, 
And the soft breeze sweet echo brings, 
A shepherd tends his sheep and sings : 



"0 little love! where'er the place, 
I dream of thee through all the hours; 
Deep in the cups of dewy flowers 

Bright fancy weaves for me thy face. 




"The lark that soars far up above 
The meadows and the babbling streams, 
And carols forth his song, but seems 

I'o echo thy sweet voice, my love ! 

•*Dowu in the brook when wavelets beat 
In gentle ripples 'gainst a stone, 



I think, my love, of thee alone, 

And hear the murmur of thy feet. 

"And as I lie among the flowers, 

There's nought, my love, but tells of thecj 

And, lulled by all sweet melody, 

I dream and Avhile away the hours." 



TWILIGHT 



r' is the sweet and tender grace 
Of sorrow in a lovely face, 
When the bright eyes are brimmed with tears> 
That yearns through all the vanished years. 

For, though long years have passed away, 
I still recall that pai ting day 
When here, with breaknig hearts, we stood 
In this dim twilight of the ^^ood. 




The winding pathway is the same ; 
The oak on which I carved her name 
Still casts its shadow over me ; 
And still Ah ! what is this I see ? 

The pale face lifted to my own, 
The sad, sad lips tliat made sweet mt>an, 
Unconscious of the future years 
When other eyes would till with tears. 



NOBODY COULD HAVE SEEN IT» 



FAST down the staircase swinging, 
With flying feet I passed ; 
Quick up the staircase springing, 

He came and held me fast; 
And the stairs are dark and dim — 
Xany a kiss I had from him. 
And nobody could have seen it. 

Down into the hall demurely, 
The guests were assembled there ; 

My cheeks flushed hot, and surely 
My lips did their tale declare. 

I thought they looked at me every one, 

And saw what we together had done, "" 
Yet nobody could have seen it. 

The garden its sweets displaying, 

Beckoned me out of doors; 
The welcome call obeying, 

I hastened to look at the flowers ; 
There blushed the roses all around, 
There sang the birds with merry sound, 

As if they all had seen it. 

From the German. 



And flits in his woodland track. 
The shade of the wood, and the sheen of 
the river, 
The cloud and the open sky, — 
He will haunt them all with his subtle 
quiver, 
Like the light of your very eye. 

The fisher hangs over the leaning boat, 

And ponders the silver sea. 
For Love is under the surface hid, 

And a spell of thought has he; 
He heaves the wave like a bosom sweet, 

And speaks in the ripple low. 
Till the bait is gone from the crafty line, 

And the hook hangs bare below. 

He blurs the print of the scholar's book, 

And intrudes in the maiden's prayer, 
And profanes the cell of the holy man 

In the shape of a lady fair. 
In the darkest night, and the bright day- 
light. 

In earth, and sea, and sky. 
In every home of human thought 

Wih Love be lurking nigh. 

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS. 



THE ANNOYER. 

LOVE knoweth every form of air, 
And every shape of earth, 
And comes unbidden everywhere, 
Like thought's mysterious birth. 
The moonlit sea and the sunset sky 

Are written with Love's words. 
And you hear his voice unceasingly. 
Like song in the time of birds. 

He peeps into the warrior's heart 

From the tip of a stooping plume. 
And the serried spears, and the many men 

May not deny him room. 
He'll come to his tent in the weary night. 

And be busy in his dream. 
And he'll float to his eye in the morning 
light. 

Like a fay on a silver beam. 

He hears the sound of the hunter's gun, 

And rides on the echo back. 
And sighs in his ear like a stirring leaf, 



I 



BY THE SEA. 

N" shady nook, 

That peeps down on the sun-kissed sea, 
A lassie sits with far-off look 
In loving eyes, that seem to me 
Mirrors of truth and purity. 

And all in vain 
Do little hands caressing stray, 

And seek to bring her thoughts again 
To centre on their childish play : 
For once they've wandered far away. 

daughter mine, 
I ought to bring you sympathy, 

And yet I cannot but repine ; 
The love-light in your eyes I see, 
And know that you are lost to me. 

Yet, little one, 
When it befalls you pass away 

To be another's light and sun. 
Though life Avill lose its glow for aye, 
111 try to smile and bless the day. 




BY THE SEA. 



(9) 



ON THE DOORSTEP. 



T 



HE conference-meeting through at last, 

We boys around the vestry waited 
To see the girls come tripping past 
Like snowbirds wilUng to be mated. 



Not braver he that leaps the wall 

By level musket-flashes litlen, 
Than T, who stepped before them all, 

Who longed to see me get the mitten. 

But no; she blushed, and took my arm ! 

We let the old folks have the highway, 
And started to^Yard the INIaple Farm 

Along a kind of lover's by-way. 

I can't remember what we said, 

'T was nothing w^orth a song or story; 

Yet that rude path ])y which we sped 
Seemed all transformed and in a glory. 

The snow was crisp beneath our feet, 

The moon was full, the fields were gleaming; 

By hood and tippet sheltered sweet, 

Her face with youth and healtli was beaming. 

The little hand outside her mufi^— 
O sculptor, if you could but mould it! — 

So lightly tou(!hed my jacket-cuff, 
To keep it warm I had to hold it. 

To have her with me there alone, — 

'T was love and fear and triumph blended. 

At last we reached the foot-worn stone 
Where that delicious journey ended. 

The old folks, too, were almost home; 

Her dimpled hand the latches fingered, 
We heard the voices nearer come, 

Yet on the doorstep still we lingered. 

She shook her ringlets from her hood. 

And with a "Thank you, Ked," dissembled. 

But yet I knew she understood 

With what a daring wish I trembled. 

A cloud passed kindly overhead, 

The moon was slyly peeping through it, 
Yet hid its face, as if it said, 

"Come, no\v or never! do it! do it r 

INFy lips till then had only knowMi 
The kiss of mother and of sister, 

But somehow, full upon her own 
Sweet, rosy, darling mouth — I kissed her! 



Perhaps 't was boyish love, yet still, 

O listless woman, weary lover! 
To feel once more that fresh, wild thrill 

I'd give— But who can live youth over? 

EDMUND CLARENCE S T E D M A N . 



KISS ME SOFTLY. 



Da me basia. — Catullus. 

I TISS me softly and speak to me Jow, — 
IA Malice has ever a vigilant ear; 
X\ What if Malice were lurking near? 

jL Kiss me, dear! 

Kiss me softly and speak to me low. 

Kiss me softly and speak to me low, — 
Envy too has a watchful ear: 
What if Envy should chance to hear? 
Kiss jne, dear! 

Kiss me softly and speak to me low. 

Kiss me softly and speak to me low: 
Trust me, darling, the time is near 
When lovers may love with never a fear. 
Kiss me, dear! 

Kiss me softly and speak to me low. 

JOHN GODFREY SAXE. 



IT NEVER COMES AGAIN, 



T^HERE are gains for all our losses, 
There are balms for all our pain 
But wdien youth, the dream, departs. 
It takes something from our hearts, 
And it never comes again. 



1 



We are stronger, and are better, 

Under manhood's sterner reign; 
Still we feel that something sweet 
Followed youth with flying feet, 
And Avill never come again. 

Something beautiful is vanished, 

And we sigh for it in vain; 
W^e behold it everywhere, 
On the earth and in the air, 

But it never comes again. 

R. H. S TOD DART, 



10 



|iiii(iifi'(iiiifrfifflir'^ 




ODE OF LOVE, 



Of thy celestial strain. 

Yet how of Life to sing,, and yet not tell of Love ; 

And since thou art the source of song, 

And all our hearts dost move, 

I will essay thy praise nor fear to do thee wrong- 

For see, the lovers go 

With lingering steps and slow. 

By dim arcades where sunbeams scarcely 

reach; 
On sea-struck northern beach; 
Or breathless tropic strand, 
By evening breeze fiinncd; 
Or through the thick life-laden air 
Of some great city; or through the hush 
Of summer twilights 'midst the corn; 
\Mien all the dying heavens glow and blush 
Or the young moonlight curves its crescent 

horn. 

Oh, wondrous bond that binds 

Li one sweet concord separate minds, 

And from their union gives 

To the rapt gazer's eye 

A finer essence and more high, 

A young and winged God, who lives 

In purer air and seeks a loftier sky ! 

If growing cares and lower aims should banish 

All thought of heavenly hopes and higher 

things, 
AMiile we can mount upon thy soaring wings 
They shall not wholl}^ vanish. 
Thou art the immortal part of man, the soul, 
Which, scorning earth's control, 
Lifts us from selfish thought and grovelling 

gains. 
Thou always, whilst thy power remains, 
Canst pierce the dull dead weight of cloud, 
By which our thought is bowed, 
And raise our clear and cleansed eyes 
To the eternal skies. 

No sting of sense it is 

That gives thee wing and lifts thee to the 

heaven. 
Too high art thou fur this ; 
Ethereal, pure, free from earth s grosser 

leaven. 
If aught of sense be thine, it is the air. 
Whose weight can lift thee up to soar, 
Which can thy lieavenward pinions bear 
From brute earth more and more 
Up to the fount of Power and Love 
Whence all things move. 



And see, the lovers go 

With lingering steps and slow, 

Over all the world together, all in all, 

Over all the world! The empires fall; 

The ouAvard march of Man seems spent; 

The nations rot in dull content; 

The blight of war, a bitter flood, 

From continent to continent, 

Rolls on with waves of blood; 

The light of knowledge sinks, the fire •:. 

thought biu'ns low; 
There seems scant thought of God; but yet 
One iDOwer there is men ne'er forget. 
And still through every land benenth the skies. 
Rapt, careless, looking in each other's eyes, 
With lingering steps and slow. 
The lovers go. 

A pillar of light 

Goes evermore before their dazzled eyes. 

Purple and golden-bright. 

Youth's vast horizons spread and the un 

bounded skies. 
Oh blessed dream which for awhile dost hide 
Tire sorrows of the world and leave life 

glorified I 
Oh blessed light that rises still. 
Young eyes and eager souls to fill! 

Linked arms and hearts aglow; 
AVherever man is more than brute, 
To this self-sacrifice our nature grow. 
Riipt each in each they go, and mute, 

Listening to the sweet song 

Which Love, with unheard accents, all day 

long 
Sing to them, like a hidden bird. 
Sweeter than e'er Avas se^n or heard, 
YHiich from life's thick-leaved tree 
Sings sadly, merrily, 
A strange, mixed song, a mystic strain, 
Which rises now to joy and jollity, 
Xow seemeth to com^olain; 
But with a sweeter inusic far than is 
Of earthborn melodies. 

He sees Avithin her eyes 

That Avhich his nature needs to be complete— 
The grace, the pureness, tbe diviner sweet, 
Which to rude souls and strong our Li!"e 

denies; 
The visiju of his nightly dream; 
More pure than e'er did seem 
The Xymphs of old, by Avood, or hill, or stream. 



12 



GDE OF LOVE, 



She views in him the strong 

Deep note which adds tlie fullness to life's 

song ; 
High aims and thoughts that glow. 
She does not dream, she cannot know 
What turbid forces rude and wild 
Sully his youth's tumidtuous flow; 
She, full of virgin fancies, pale and mild. 

They draw to each other; they flow together 

in one, 
Together thro' all lands beneath the sun, 
In one attempered stream, or side by side, 
So near that scarce a footspace may divide 
Their separate depths, and this maybe is best; 
Or maybe in each other lost, 
In calm or tempest-tost, 
One broad full river they roll on to the sea, 
One full accordant harmony, 
High song and deep, one perfect note ; 
Or may be troubled as the wintry wave. 
Or some hoarse accent of a tuneless throat. 
They know no longer peace or rest. 
Ill-mated, hapless, self-opprest. 
Till silent in the grave. 

Yet draw together, draw together still, 
Fair souls and free, fair souls and young ! 
Still shall thy praise. Immortal Love, be sung! 
Thou art the Spirit which doth animate; 
The Universal Will, 

Which speeds the Race upon the ways of Fate ; 
^^Tiich speeds it onwards, gaining strength 
Little by little, line on line. 
Till, as our hope is, risen at length 
To plenitude divine. 
It comes to what high issue rare 
The Future shall prepare. 



Ten more fretting years renew it ; 

Little wagon made of willow ; 
Loving eyes are bent to view it; 

Loving hands adjust the pillow, 
And we've fitted rockers to it. 



BLACKBERRIES AND KISSES. 



WE were up on the green old hill-side 
Where the blackberry bushes grow, 
And we gathered the ripe, sweet 
berries 
Till the sun was getting low^, 
And somehow, where the fruit was ripest — 

I could not account for this ! 
We were sure to eat all the berries. 
And sweeten them with a kiss. 
Oh, I know of nothing better, 

The whole year round, than this: 
A handful of ripe blackberries 
Made sweet wdth a lover's kiss. 

" If they saw us eating the berries 

In this new, but pleasant way, 
They would say we were silly creatures," 

Said she, but I ans-wered, " Nay, 
They would say we were wise, my darling, 

To eat our berries so, 
For kisses are cheaper than sugar 
In times like these, you know." 
Oh, I know of nothing better, 

The whole year round than this: 
A handful of ripe blackberries 
Made sweet wdth a lover's kiss. 



I 



RECONSTRUCTION. 

N a wagon made of willow 

W^heeled I once a little maiden, 

Ringlets shining on the pillow. 
Rolling homeward treasure laden, 

Like a boat upon the billow. 



Ten years fled. Ali ! how I missed her 
When we left the village school! 

But she said she'd be my sister 
As we lingered by tlie pool, 

And I passionately kissed her. 



As we stood in the path together. 

When our feet were homeward turned 
I whispered the sweet old question 

That each lover's heart has learned. 
I forget the words of her answer. 

But I can remember this. 
It was all my heart had hoped for. 
And I took it with a kiss. 
Oh, I know of nothing better. 

The whole year round than this: 
A handful of ripe blackl)orries 
Made sweet by a lover's kiss. 



13 



A WOMAN'S ANSWER. 



1WILL not let you say a woman's i^art 
Must be to give exclusive love alone ; 
Dearest, although I love you so, my heart 
Answers a thousand claims besides your 
own. 

I love — what do I not love ? Earth and air 
Find space within my heart, and myriad 

things 
You would not deign to heed are cherish'd 
there, 
And vibrate on its very inmost strings. 

I love the Summer, with her ebb and flow 
Of light and warmth, and music, that have 
nursed 

Her tender buds to blossoms and you know 

It was in summer that I saw you first. 

I love the Winter dearly too, but then 

I owe it so much ; on a winter's day, 

Bleak, cold, and stormy, you return'd again, 
"SiMien you had been those wea.ry months 
away. 

I love the Stars like friends; so many nights 
I gazed at them, when you were far fi'om me. 

Till I grew blind with tears, ...those far-off'lights 
Could watch you, whom I long'd in vain to 
see. 

I love the flowers ; happy hours lie 

Shut up within their petals close and fast : 
You have forgotten, dear ; but they and I 
Keep every fragment of the golden past. 

I love, too, to be loved ; all loving praise 
Seems like a crown upon my life, — to make 

It better worth the gi^dng, and to raise 
Still nearer to your own the heart you take. 

I love all good and noble souls ; — I heard 
One speak of you but lately, and for days. 

Only to think of it, my soul was stirr'd 

In tender memory of such generous j^raise. 

I love all those who love you : all who owe 
Comfort to you ; and I can find regret 

Even for those poorer hearts who once could 
know 
And once could love you, and can now forget. 

Well, is my heart so narrow, — I who spare 
Love for all these ! Do I not even hold 

My favorite books in special tender care, 
And prize them as a miser does his gold — 



Tlie poets that you used to read to me 
^Miile summer twilights faded in the sky; 

But most of all I think Aurora Leigh, 
Because — because — do you remember why? 

Will you be jealous ? Did you guess before 
I loved so many things? — Still you the best: 

Dearest, remember that I love you more, 
Oh more a thousand times, than all the rest ! 

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER. 



DELAY. 



DISPOSED to wed, e'en while you hasten, 
stay; 
There's gi'eat advantage in a small delay: 
******* 

If poor, delay, for future wants prepares. 
And eases humble life of half its cares ; 
If rich, delay shall brace the doubtful mind, 
T' endure the ills that e'en the happiest find : 
Delay shall knowledge yield on either part. 
And show the value of the vanquish'd heart; 
The humours, passions, merits, failings prove; 
And gently raise the veil that's worn by Love ; 

******** 
Yet not too long in cold debate remain; 
Till Age refrain not — but if old, refi'ain. 

CRABBE 



THE POWER OF LOVE. 



I. 

I FLOATED down the stream at eventide. 
And heard a nightingale in distant tree 
Wooing his mate with wondrous melody; 
Full long I listened rapt, and then I tried 
To weave the passioned notes lq song, but 
sighed 
To find how cold my own love-lay must be, 
With scarce a murmur of the harmony. 

II. 

Poured forth in ceaseless strain on every side, 
But when I showed my love with conscious 
shame. 
My feeble rendering of the wild bird's-song, 
A tender light shone in her eyes down-bent, 
For to her ears a gladful echo came 
Of the sweet songster's lay, and lingered long, 
And thrilled her heart with losing wonder- 
ment. 

G. WEATKERLY. 



14 




THE POWER OF LOVE. 



15 



CROWNED iN SUMMER. 



It MORN" when, quivering lights and 
f\ shadows fall 

X I Athwart the fair luxuriance of the trees ; 

JL A morn when summer voices lightly 
call, 

And come and go with ever}^ passing breeze; 
When bees about the clover hum a tune, 
And idle streamlets purl a listless song for June- 

A- morn when all the hedgerows glimmer white 
With summer snow, scattered by hawthorn 
flowers ; 
A morn when Xature trembles with delight, 

And Love is lingering in the golden hours, 
And hiding 'mongst the purple shades that lie 
Where the dim forest fringes meet the bend- 
ing sky. 

Fair Lettice from her morning dreams awoke, 
And lo, her heart was softly murmuring 

An echoing joy, that into rapture broke 
As she the casement open wide did fling. 

And felt the balmy air, whose sweet perfume, 

From dewy flowers distilled, as incense filled 
the room. 

Lettice was dwelling in a golden land. 

Bright mth warm sunshine, where a mon- 
arch reigned 
Despotic ; yet so loved was his command, 
Each despotism fresh devotion gained ; 
And each new chain her king about her cast 
Seemed forged of purest gold, more precious 
than the last. 

She looked into her mirror, where she saw 
A young face flushed and fair as fair might be; 

And thinking of her king, and his sweet law. 
She wondered if a queen he there might see ; 

A.nd so a-dreaming still she hummed a song 

Ail idly, ''Love me little, love me long." 

Outside loud cawed the noisy busy rook. 

And ever and again the cuckoo's cry 
Resounded through the woods, and with it took 
Her thoughts to one bright day of spring 
gone by 
Wheu nrst she heard it, and her fair cheek 

burned 
As she her pocket-piece within her pocket 
turned. 

A.nd wished in simple faith a wish, that she 
Must till its consummation secret keep. 



Ah ! would the secret shared by two might be 
And joy through it into her heart might 

creep ; 
For if the charm but worked, her king was won 
And she would be the happiest maiden 'neath 

the sun. 

Thus musing she up-bound her shining hair, 

Smoothed out the folds of her trim dainty 

gown; 

And quick she slipped adown the oaken stair, 

And oped the garden door, that roses crown 

With crimson bloom ; and wandered through 

the maze 
Of box-edged borders quaint, with gayest 
flowers ablaze. 

Beneath the walnut-tree that graced the lawn 
A youth stood, wondering if to go or stay ; 

The gathering glory of the summer morn 
Around in misty sparkling splendor lay. 

He turned to go, then did his steps retrace ; 

And still he lingered as if loth to leave the place. 

Thus each unto the other nearer drew, 

Unconscious that the other was so near ; 
Yet o'er each cheek flushed forth a rosier hue, 

As in the presence of the one most dear ; 
Each breathed a gentler air, as though kind 

Heaven 
Had to the blooming earth soft Eden breezes 
given. 

Loud sing the birds — the rippling waters dance 
As tinkling silver bells o'er moss-grown 

stones ; 
AMiilst sudden Lettice' down-cast eyes up- 

glance, 
And with deep tell-tale blush her king she 

owns ; 
Whilst thus he spake : " Thou wilt not say me 

nay, 
Lettice, my queen, m.y life, my only love 

alway ?" 

O cuckoo I cuckoo ! Tlien the charm is true. 
The maiden's wish when she first heajd thy 
voice 
Hath come to pass. The secret's known to two, 

And over it two loving hearts rejoic?. 
Ah, who ^would think the cuckoo's note 

could bring 
A coronation-song for queen and king? 



16 




COUKTtSHIP OF MILi:* STANDiSH. 




2b 



CROWNED IN SUMMER. 



17 



CROWNED IN SUMMER, 



So mused sweet Lettice in her glad content 
That all the world so very fair had grown; 

Yet still as on and on the lovers went, 
The Jiaiden's heart inclined to change it= 
tone. 

'•'0 cuckoo! cuckoo; it was love, not ihee, 

That led the footsteps of my king to me ! " 

JULIA GODDARD. 



RUSTIC COURTSHIP. 



THE night was dark when Sam set out 
To court old Jones' daughter; 
He kinder felt as if he must, 
And kinder hadn't oughter. 
His heart against his waistcoat throbbed, 

His feelings had a tussle, 
Which nearly conquered him despite 
Six feet of bone and muscle. 

Tlie candle in the window shone 

With a most doleful glunmer, 
And Sam he felt his courage ooze, 

And through his fingers simmer. 
Says he : " Xow, Sam, don't be a fool, 

Take courage, shaking doubter. 
Go on, and pop the question right, 

For you can't live without her." 

But still, as he drew near the house. 

His knees got in a tremble. 
The beating of his heart ne'er beat 

His eflForts to dissemble, 
Says he: "Xow, Sam, don't be a goose. 

And let the female wimmin 
Knock all your thoughts a-skelter so, 

And set your heart a-ST\immin'." 

So Sam, he kinder raised the latch, 

His courage also raismg, 
And in a moment he sat inside, 

Sid Jones' crops a-praising. 
He tried awhile to talk the farm 

In words half dull, half witty. 
Not knowing that old Jones well knew 

His only thought was — Kitty. 

At last the old folks went to bed — 
The Joneses were but human; 

Old Jones was something of a man, 
And !Mrs. Jones — a woman. 



And Kitty she the pitcher took, 

And started for the cellar: 
It wasn't often that she had 

So promising a feller. 

And somehow when she came up stairs, 

And Sam had drank his cider, 
Tliere seemed a difference in the chairs. 

And Sam was close beside her; 
His stalwart arm di'opped round hei waist^ 

Her head di'opped on his shoulder, 
And Sam — ^well, he had changed his tune 

And gro^Ti a trifle bolder. 

But this, if you live long enough. 

You surely ^^ill discover, 
Tliere *s nothing in this world of ours 

Except the loved and lover, 
Tlie morning sky was growing gray 

As Sam the farm was leading. 
His face was surely not the face 

Of one half grieved or grieving. 

And Kitty she walked smiling back, 

With blushing face, and slowly ; 
Tliere's something in the humblest love 

That makes it pure and holy. 
And did he marry her you ask : 

She stands there with the ladle 
A-skimming of the morning's milk — 

Tliat's Sam who rocks the cradle. 



w 



LOVE'S OMNIPRESENCE. 

EKE I as base as the lowly plain. 



And you, my love, as high as b.eaven 

above. 

Yet should the thoughts of me, your 
humble swain. 
Ascend to heaven, in honor of my Eove. 

Were I as high as heaven above the plain. 
And you, my love, as humble and as low 
As are the deepest bottoms of the main, 
"VMiereso'er you were, with you my love 
should go. 

Were you the earth, dear Love, and I the skies. 
My love should shine on you like to the sun. 
And look upon you with ten thousand eyes 
Till heaven wax'd blind, and till the world 
were done. 

"^iMiereso'er I am, below, or else above you, 
Whereso'er you are, my heart shall truly 
love you. 

JOSHUA SYLVESTER. 



18 



SUNSHINE AND SHADOW. 

A SONNET. 

IT CASUAL meeting in a crowded street; 
lA An introduction through a mutual 
A^ friend ; 

XBlushe-^, «oft words, and tender looks 
that send 
The thrill of love, delirious an 1 sweet. 
Through hearts that sympathetically beat; 

A morning call, then visits without end ; 

Whi>^pei s m corners ; mellow voices blend 
In happy harmony; anon complete 
^ibjection to the thraldom of love's spell; 

An arm around a slender waist; the old, 
Old story, ever new, yet known so well ; 

A faintly whispered answer to a bold 
Request; a kiss on lips that never tell ; 

A wedding, and a circlet of bright gold. 




19 



D 



ROBIN AND I : A RUSTIC SONG. 



OWN in the meadow where the red clover 

Sheds its sweet fragrance to coax the wild bee, 
Soon as the heat of the noonday is over, 

Blithe as young children, contented and free — 
Cheered like the birds with the fine summer weather, 

Charmed with the blue of the earth-arching sky, 
"^Veaving bright fancies we saunter together, 

Happy, how happy ! dear Robin and I ! 

Laughing he twines me a garland of daisies. 

Pink-lipped and dewy, to wear in my hair — 
Warm grows my cheek, for he whispers fond praise/. 

While his brown fingers stray lovingly there. 
Dearest of fancies ! his true heart rejoices, 

Not in the wild flowers that round our feet lie, 
Not in the birds that with shrill little voices 

Sing till ^\^e chide them, dear Robin and I ! 

Ko, 'tis the thought that when cold winds are blowing. 

Scaring the song-birds, and chilling the flowers, 
Pure and unchanging our love shall be glowing, 

Cheering our lives in their dreariest hours. 
Slily he slips a wee ring on my finger — = 

Goldfinch and throstle, still fluttering nigh, 
Ask one another how long we shall linger, 

Talking sweet secrets, dear Robin and 1 ! 

Clearly tlie brooklet, that through the green cresses 

Giddy with joy fulness dances along, 
Shows as the shimmer of daisy-bound tresses, 

Mingles two names in its fairy-like song ; 
While the soft breezes, so gentle, so loving. 

Steal through ^he flowers with a tremulous sigh, 
Round the gay , leads of the buttercups roving, 

Seeming to wViisper, " Dear Robin and I !" 

^ Dearest ! '^ I murmur, with tenderest pity, 

" Scorning the jewels that spangle the field. 
Thousands are seeking for wealth in the city. 

While the rich treasures that nature doth yield 
Ear from the toiling, the dust and the shadow. 

Live their sweet lives out, then wither and die.^' 
Ah, in the summer-time rove we the meadow, 

Rich beyond measure, dear Robin and 1 1 

20 




ROBIN AND I, 



21 



ROBIN AND I: A RUSTIC SONG, 

When the round moon rises stately and brightly, 

Ti}^)ing with silver the mountains afar, 
O'er the pale green of the grass gleaming whitely, 

Hand-locked we watch for the first blinking stars ! 
Far in the village bright tapers are burning, 

Guiding us home, when we whisper "Good-by," 
Then in the hush of the evening returning, 

Happy, how happy ! dear Robin and I ! 



FANNY FC-FKESTER, 



JOSH BILLINGS ON "COURTSHIP.' 



COURTIXG is a luxury, it is a sallad, 
it is ise-^rater, it is a beveridge, it is 
the pla s^^ell ov the soul. The man 
^vho has never courted haz lived in vain : 
lie haz bin a blind man amung laudskapes 
and waterskapes ; he haz bin a deff man 
in the land ov hand organs, and by the 
side ov murmuring canals. Courting iz 
like 2 little springs of soft water that 
steal out from under a rock at the fut ov 
a mountain and run down the hill side 
by side singing and clausing and spatering 
each other, eddying and frothing and kas- 
kading, now hiding under bank, now full 
ov sun, and now full of shadder, till 
bimeby tlia jine and then tha go slow. I 
am in favor ov long courting ; it gives the 
parties a chance to find out each uther's 
trump kards ; it is good exercise, and is 
jist as innersent as 2 merino lambs. 
Courting is like strawberries and cream, 
wants to be did slow, then you git the 
flavor. I hav saw folks git ackquainted, 
fall in luv, git married, settel down and 
git tew wark, in three weeks from date. 
This is jist the wa sum folks larn a trade, 
and akounts for the grate number ov 
almitey mean mechaniks we hav, and the 
poor jobs they turn out. 

Perhaps it is best I shud state sum good 
advise tew yung men, who are about tew 



court with a final view to matrimony, as 
it waz. In the first plase, yung man, yu 
want to git juyq system awLrite, and then 
find a yung woman who iz willing tew be 
courted on the square. The nex thing iz 
tew find out how old she is, which yu 
kan dew bi asking her, and she will sa 
that she is 1 9 years old, and this yu will 
find won't be far from out ov the wa. 
The next best thing iz tew begin moderate; 
say ons'3 every nite in the week for the 
fust six months, increasintr the dose as the 
pasheint seems to require it. It is a fust 
rate wa tew court the girl's mother a 
leettle on the start, for there iz one thing 
a woman never despizes, and that iz, a 
leettle good courting, if it is dun strikly 
on the square. After the fust year you 
will begin to be well ackquainted and will 
begin tew like the bizziness. Thare is one 
thing I alwus advise, and that is not to 
swop fotograifs oftener than oose in 10 
daze, unless yu fcrgit how the gal looks, 
Okasionally yu want tew look sorry 
and draw in yure wind az tho yu had 
pain; this will set the gal tew teaziag yu 
tew find out what ails yu. Evening meet* 
ings are a good thing to tend, it will keep 
your religion in tune ; and then if the gal 
happens to be thare, by acksident, she W* 
ask yu tew go hum v»'ith her. 



JOSH BILLINGS (9^ " COURTSHIPr 



As a ginral thing I wouldn't brag on 
Lither gals mutch when I waz courting; it 
mite look as tho yu knu tew mutch. If 
)^0u will court 3 years in this Avay, awl 
the time on the square, if yu donH sa it iz 
a leetle the slickest time in your life, you 
kan git measured for a hat at my expense 
and pa for it. Don't court for munny, 
nor buty, nor relashuns ; theze things are 
jist about az onsartin az kerosene ile re- 
fining bissness, liable tew git out ov re- 
pair and bust at enny minnit. 

Court a gal for fun, for the luv yu bear 
her, for the vartue and bissness thare is 
in her, court her for a wife and for a 
mother, court her as yu wud court a farm 
— for the strength ov the sile and the per- 
feckshun ov the title ; court her as tho she 
wasn't a fule, and yu anuther ; court her 
in the kitchen, in the parlor, over the 
wash-tub, and at the pianner ; court this 
wa, yung man, and if you don't git a good 
wife and she don't git a good husband, 
the fait won't be in the courting. 

Yung man, you kan rely upon Josh 
Billings, and if yu kant make these rules 
wurk, jist send for him and he will sho 
jru how the thing is did, and it shan't 
kost yu a cent. 



LOVE. 

IF in youth, the universe is majestically 
unveiling, and everywhere heaven re- 
vealing itself on earth, nowhere to the 
young man does this heaven on earth so 
immediately reveal itself as in the young 
maiden. Strangely enough, in this strange 
life of ours, it has been so appointed. 

In every well-conditioned stripling, as 
I conjecture, there already blooms a cer- 
tain prospective Paradise, cheered by some 
fairest Eve; nor in the stately vistas, and 
flowerage and foliage of that garden, is a 



tree of knowledge, beautiful and awful in 
the midst thereof, wanting. Perhaps, too, 
the whole is but the lovelier if cherubim 
and a flaming sword divide it from all 
footsteps of men, and grant him, the 
imaginative stripling, only the view, not 
the entrance. Happy season of v'^rtuous 
youth, when shame is still an imp{**^sable 
barrier ; and the sacred air-cities of hope 
have not shrank into the mean clay- 
hamlets of reality, and man, by his nature, 
is yet infinite and free ! 

THOMAS CARLYLE. 



BEHAVE YOURSEL' 
FOLK. 



BEFORE 



B 



EHAVE yoursel' before folk, 
And dinna be sae rude to me, 

As kiss me sae before folk. 

It's no through hatred o' a kisa 

That I sae plainly tell you this; 

But ah J I tak' it sair amiss, 
To be sae teazed before folk 
Behave yourself before folk, 

When we're alane, ye may tak' ane, 
But nent a ane before folk. 

Ye tell me that my face is fair; 
It may be sae — I dinna care — 
But ne'r again gar't blush sae sair 

As ye hae dune before folk. 
Ye tell me that my lips are sweet; 
Sic tales, I doubt are a deceit; 
At ony rate, it's hardly meet 

To prie their sweets before folk 

But, gin you really do insist 
That I should suffer to be kissed, 
Gae, get a license frae the priest. 
And mak' me yours before folk; 
Behave yoursel' before folk, 
And when we're ane.baith flt>8h and bane 



Yc may tak' ten — bet 



ore t( 



Scotch Song. 



23 



THE JOYS (OF YOUTH 



FOW very lovely art thou in the Young, 
Oh, Life ! ere known to them the wasting pain 
That wrings the nerves w^ith cureless agony! 
Or shame that fires the brain, or the world's wrong 
That crushes like a rock ; or guilty hopes 
That ponder other's pain ; or o'er wrought toil 
That crouches down in torpor and despair ; 
Or stolid crime, that mocks at worlds to come ; 
Or the wild hell of triple-fanged remorse, 
That trembles only with fantastic dread 
It dares not face or question. In the Young, 
Life is a good, and only in the Young, 
Whose organs play with ease ; whose warm veins throb 
With tides of simple gladness; whose light breasts 
Lodge happy inmates yet ; nor fear Old Time, 
With all his growing pack of hopes deceived. 
And toils unrecompensed, and trust betray'd ; — 
Of honor's due refused, Virtue belied. 
Of scorn unmerited endured; — of want; — 
Of deep affections rooted in tlie core 
Of their frail beings blasted by the breath 
Of sleepless envy ; of the fond ties 
Twined round the heart by nature, virtue, love, 
Severed by death all merciless, or now 
Rending the bosom's tenderest chords withal, 
That heal no more ; no, never ! 

********** 

Oh ! for a charm 
To bind for ever fast, the am'ranth wreath 
Young life puts on, and lift from Age's brow, 
Bleeding and wrung, th' eternal crown of thorns. 
It may not be : the lot is cast and drawn, 
Nor can be put aside ; save by the arm 
That could roll round with ease the flaming sun 
Backward, astonish'd, on his axis firm. 



BA\h 



SONG 



Not from the whole wide world I choose thee, 
Sweetheart, light of the land and the sea ! 
The Avide, wide world could not inclose thee, 
For thou art the whole wide world to me. 

RICHARD WATSON GILDER, 

24 




^^ ^^_^ A SUMMER EVE'S VOYAGE 



WESTWAED see how sunlights falling, 
Half the Head in darkiiess leave; 
How the sea-gulls, blithely calling. 

Airy circles o'er it weave; 
Be my little skipper, Annie, 
And we'll catch the offshore breeze; 
Round the rocks are wonders many, 
Sights a landsman never sees. 





Soon they cleave the bay, scarce ruffled, 

Soon lie off \.\\q headland's verge, 
See the rocks in oar-wecd mufHed, 

Mermaid-gardens 'neath the surge; 
Living star, and flower, and feather, 
Blooming, waving, far and wide : 
Faces — boy's and girl's together — 
Mirrored meeting in the tide. 

Round the headland, careless drifted. 

Float they where the shadowy swell, 
Fitfully 'gainst rocks uplifted. 

Back in silver torrents fell ; 
And they watched the gleaming shingle, 

With the fishers' cots above; 
Till blue heaven,, grey earth, commingle. 

And o'er ocean star-hosts move. 



Why doth Annie dip her fingers 

Pensive through their homeward track? 
Silent, too, the oarsman lingers 

As he rows his skipper back ; 
Fragrant Eve and moonlight's glory — 

Has their subtle magic Avrought 
Foretastes of "the old, old story" 

Aye to young affections taught ? 

Happy, who thus seeking beauty, 

Hand in hand like children hnd 
From its quest love blossoms, duty 

In its outward forms enshrined; 
Ha|ipier they, life's voyage ended, 

Wlio attain the welcome shore, 
Where united hearts are blended 

In the peaceful evermore. 

M. G. W ATKINS, M. A, 



25 



PLEASURE. 



11" LAS! how poor a Trifle all, 
11 Is that which here we Pleasure call! 
X^ Since what our very souls has cost, 

X Is hardly got, and quickly lost: 
The empty bribe of yielding souls, 

Which first betrays, and then controls. 

It looks indeed, at distance, fair; 

But soon as w^e approach, 
Like fruit of Sodom 'twill impair, 
And perish at a touch. 
In being, than in fancy, less ; — ■ 
And we expect more, than possess. 

What art thou, then, thou winged Air, 

More w^eak and swift than Fame ! 
Whose next successor is Despair, 
And its attendant. Shame ? 
Th' experienced Prince sure Reason had. 
Who said of Pleasure, — "It is mad." 

GRIND A (Mrs. Katherine Phillips). 



AMiile, if too slight it seem, to bear 
The breathings of the summer air, 
We know that it could bear the w'eight 
Of a most heavy heart of late. 
And as each day and hour flew 
The stronger for its burthen grew. 

And, too, we know and feel again 
It has been sanctified by pain; 
For what God deigns to try with sorrow 
He means not to decoy to-morrow; 
But through that fiery trial last. 
When earthly ties and bonds are past; 
\Miat slighter things dare not endure 
Will make our Love more safe and pure. 

Love shall be purified by pain, 
And Pain be soothed by Love again: 
So let us now take heart, and go 
Cheerfully on through joy and w^oe: 
ISTo change the summer sun can bring, 
Or the inconstant skies of spring, 
Or the bleak winter's stormy w^eather. 
For we shall meet them. Love, together ! 

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER, 



A CHAIN. 

THE bond that links our souls together, 
Will it last through stormy weather? 
Will it moulder and decay. 
As the long hours pass away? 
Will it stretch if Fate divide us. 
When dark and weary hours have tried us ? 
Oh, if it look too poor and slight. 
Let us break the links to-night ! 

It was not forged by mortal hands. 

Or clasped with golden bars and bands ; 

Save thine and mine, no other eyes 

The slender link can recognize : 

In the bright light it seems to fade. 

And it is hidden in the shade ; 

While Heaven nor Earth have never heard, 

Or solemn vow or plighted word. 

Yet, what no mortal hand could make, 
Ko mortal power can ever break : 
What words or vows could never do, 
No w^ords or vows can make untrue ; 
And, if to other hearts unknown. 
The dearer and the more our own, 
Because too sacred and divine 
For other eyes, save thine and mine. 

And see ! though slender, it is made 
Of Love and Trust, and can they fade? 



A BUNCH OF ROSES. 



'PJOSES, while all your beauties cloy, 

Lc Grief, tyrant- wise, oft smothers joy ; 

A\ June's cherish'd blossoms, red, pink, pale^ 

\,Whose perfume faints on every gale, 
Your thousand charms my heart should glsd. 
And yet — your fragrance leaves me sad! 

Thou, blushing bud, of hope rich queen, 
Thy ]Dromise tyi^e of me had been 
Last summer, when beside this gate 
We stopped — what time his patient mate 
Eve's minstrel solaced — and my heart 
I gave, and vowed nought love should part 

But thou, poor cankered rose-bud, killed 
With insect-guile, typ'st hopes now stilled 
Aff'ections blighted, trust once slain 
By cold neglect, ne'er bloom again; 
AVith careless scorn and absence tried. 
My love, like thee, has shrivelled, died ! 

Ah, full-blown rose ! some happier maid 
Thou'd grace, within dark tresses laid; 
The fullest depths of tender love 
Glow in thy lustre ; throned above 
Her radiant eyes, thou'd Avell express 
How trustful beauty blessed can bless ! 

REV. M . G . W A T K r N S , M , A- 



26 



AiWWMm 





1:. ■ . 




s ' 


m^^Md 



^'"'■"^f^Mmmifim 



wm. 



■m^/A -\ 



A BUNCH OF ROSES. 



THE SLEEP OF YOUTH. 



OH ! let Youth cherish that happiest of 
earthly boons while yet it is at its 
command ; for there cometh the day 
to all, ^^ when neither the voice of the lute 
nor the birds ^^ shall bring back the sweet 
slumbers that fell on their young eyes, as 
unbidden as the dews. 

BULWER LYTTON. 



A WOMAN'S QUESTION. 



BEFOEE I trust my Fate to thee 
Or place my hand in thine, 
Before I let thy Future give 
Color and form to mine. 
Before I peril all for thee, question thy soul 
to-night for me. 

I break all slighter bonds, nor feel 

A shadow of regret : 
Is there one link within the Past 
That holds thy spirit yet? 
Or is thy Faith as clear and free as that which 
I can pledge to thee ? 

Does there wdthin thy dimmest dreams 

A possible future shine, 
Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe, 
Untouch'd, unshared by mine? 
If so, at any pain or cost, oh tell me before 
all is lost. 

Look deeper still. If thou canst feel 

Within thy inmost soul, 
That thou hast kept a portion back, 
AYhile I have staked the whole; 
Let no folse pity spare the blow, but in true 
miercy tell me so. 

Is there within thy heart a need 

That mine cannot fulfill ? 
One chord that any other hand 
Could better wake or still ? 
Speak now — lest at some future day my whole 
life wither and decay. 

Lives there within thy nature hid 

The demon-spirit Change, 
Shedding a passing glory still 
On all things new and strange ? 
It may not be thy fault alone — but shield my 
heart against thy own. 



Couldst thou withdraw thy hand one day 
And answer to my claim, 
That Fate, and that to-day's mistake— 
IS'ot thou — had been to blame! 
Some soothe their conscience thus ; but thou 
wilt surely warn and save me now. 

Nay, answer not, — I dare not hea,r, 
The words Avould come too late ; 
Yet I would spare tli<ee all remorse. 
So comfort thee, my Fate — 
WTiatever on my heart may fall — remember 
I would risk it all ! 

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTOR. 



ASKED AND ANSWERED. 



OF what, or of whom, does my lady think, 
My lady so sliy and so sweet, 
As she casts soft crumbs on the river's 
brink, 
To the swan at her dainty feet ? 
Does she think how proud the white swan 

must be 
Of her smiles and her care for him — not me? 

Of what, or of whom, does my lady speak 
In those murmurs loving and low. 

With the timid tint on her maiden cheek 
Faintly limned in the wave below ? 

Blush for the river, caress for the bird, 

Yet for me, her lover, nor blush nor word. 

Of what, or of whom, does my lady dream. 

As the river goes gliding by? 
Does she see two forms in the glass}^ stream. 

Or only herself and the sky? 
Can she see how the shadows melt and blend, 
Yet hold me apart, as — only a friend ? 

For what, or for whom, does my lady sigh. 

Swan and river left far behind ? 
Can it be for that which is waiting nigh — 

A true love's heart with her's to bind ? — 
Is there a bird in the boughs overhead 
Could tell what beneath them is sighed or said? 

Of what, or of whom, does the lover dream, 
Pulling home in his peerless boat? 

Of moon or of clouds, or winding stream. 
With the gladsome heart afloat ? 

He knows for whom were the blush and the 



28 



sigh. 
And all that was meant in the whispers shy. 




ASKED AND ANSWERED. 



THE EXCHANGE 



' Y true love hath my heart, and I have his, His heart in me keeps him and me in one, 

By j ust exchange one to the other given ; My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides: 

I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss: He loves my heart, for once it was his own, 

There never was a better bargain driven : I cherish his because in me it bides : 
My true love hath my heart, and I have his. My true love hath my heart, and I have his, 

SIR PHILIP SYDNEY, 



BETROTHED. 



w 



HAT of the dawning life, the scenes that are hushed and dim ? 
What of the shrouded path, oh soul ! to be trod \Tith him? 



Never again, my feet! shall ye know the meadow- ways, 

Where slowly swing the boughs, and the plashing brooklet plays. 

Over the cold, calm seas, shall I yearn through years to come, 
All for the mother's heart, the peace of my girlhood's home? 

Down where the waters move, the leaves go quivering by. 
Drift they to sun or shade ? where Avill they rest and die ? 

Whither, oh trembling heart ! shall the changing current bear-— 
Passest thou hence to tears, or unto a world most fair ? 

Oh but lift the veil ! to read what is curtained still, 
The hidden road of life, the waiting good or ill. 

Be thou at rest, my soul ! this ring that I newly wear 
Gleams with a rosy ray, chiding the secret care. ^ 

Though to these long-loved fields no more through my life I eome^ 
Doth he not call me hence? and is he not heart and home ? 

Dawneth a dearer light than fell on the vanished way; 

Hath he not pledged me his, through shadow and shine for aye? 

Darling, what recks it now though skies should grow dark above ? 
Blessed am I through change, wrapt round in a changeless love. 

Symbol thou art to me, as I shelter deep in thy faith. 
Symbol of tireless Care that holdeth us both till death. 

Not like the drifting leaves we follow a Avandering tide: 
Called by the name of Christ, we cling to a tender Guide. 

He will be near us still, dear love, through the ways untrod ; 
Do I not trust in thee, and shall we not trust in God ? 

MARGARET MAC RITCHIE, 

30 




BETROTHED.'* 




. , My girlhood's world lies lost beneath the flooc 
., Of light, bright days that fell like silver rain 

Swollen from the fountains of my womanhood. 
Xow broken up, not to be sealed again. 

^[ But lo 1 another world, as foir. more calm, 
Arisen like Delos. floats upon the wave; 
I bare my brow to breezes blowing balm 
** WHERE THE BROOK AND RIVER And smile, through tears, above my'giiv 

^EET.'' hood's crrave. 



irjTY maiden visions curb their airy flights, 
lyi And droop their pinions and come 
A? I back to me; 

1. Tliat first fair world, with all its young 

jielighi- 
And morning hopes, they can no longer see. 



A tender longing, full of gracious pain, 
A want more rich than wealth possessed 
before, 
Delicious rumors rife in heart and brain 
And rosy warmths tha. flush me more and 
more. 



32 



WHERE THE BROOK AND RIVER MEET. 



A sense of incompleteness, new and strange, 
Something that draws me toward support, 
beside 

A hundred nameless heraldries of change 
Forewarn me of^a chance that may betide. 

I watch to meet an eye I have not met ; • 
I hearken for a voice I have not heard ; 

I tremble toward a touch that hath not yet 
The dreaming blood's expectant pulses 
stirred. 

Sometimes a look will startle, or a tone ; 
A touch sometimes half seen to shake my 
heart; 



A moment then alone is more alone, 
And fates were sweet together, not apart. 

Yet well content with blessed discontent 
I dream my dream, nor care to waken soon; 

The dream bides fair, though fairer far be 
meant. 
Let the white dawn delay the golden noon. 

So watch my heart, and let me dream jny 
dream ; 
Watch and awake me when the time shall 
come; 
Perhaps our prince is nearer than we deem, 
E'j.' ^reet him thou — my dream may make 
me dumb. 

WILLIAM C. WILKINSON. 



THE DEATHS OF LOVE. 



*^r^lO vE ^^^^ ^ kinds of death : in some so quick 
It comes — he is not previously sick ; 
But ere the sun has on the couple .:hed 
The morning rays, the smile of Love is fled. 
And what the cause ? for Love should not expire, 
And none the reason of such fate require. 
Both had a mask, that with such pains they wore, 
Each took it off when it availed no more. 




*!«» 



•o<3 



Disguise thrown off, each reads the other's heart, 
And feels with horror that they cannot part. 
****** 

Love has slow death and sudden : wretches prove 

That fate severe — the sudden death of Love ; 

It is as if, on day serenely bright. 

Came with its horrors instantaneous night : 

Others there are with whom Love does away 

In gradual waste and unperceived decay; 

Such is that Death of Love that nature finds 

Most fitted for the use of common minds, 

The natural death ; but doubtless there are some 

"Who struggle hard when they perceive it come; 

Loth to be loved no longer, loth to prove 

To the once dear that they no longer love : 

And some with not successless arts will strive 

To keep the weakening, fluttering flame alive, crabbk. 



33 



THE OBJECTS OF EDUCATION. 



TO learn A, B, C, is felt to be extremely 
irksome by the infant, who cannot 
comprehend what it is for. The boy, 
forced to school, cons over his dull lesson, 
because he must, but feels no amusement 
or satisfaction in it. The labor he is 
obliged to undergo is not small ; the pri- 
vations of pleasures and activity he regrets 
still more ; and all for what ? To learn 
what he does not like; to force into his 
mind words to which he attaches no ideas, 
or ideas which appear to him to be of no 
value ; he cannot put them to any pres- 
ent use. Youth is not aware, that not 
for present use is all this designed. The 
dull, laborious, but necessary routine, like 
plowing and sowing Ihe land, is in hopes 
of reaping abundance, at some not very 
distant season. Education is not the end, 
but only the means. 

Let us see what is the object it has in 
view. A person growing to a certain age 
must appear in the world ; he can no 
longer hide himself at school, nor with- 
draw behind the routine of the trammels 
appointed for his minority. He must start 
forward and become something. What 
that something is to be, education only 
can surmise; even talents, genius, for- 
tune can give little guess. A man must 
act; whether he is necessitated to labor 
for his maintenance, or is freed by fortune 
from all apprehension, and all constrained 
exertion, yet he must act. It is the intent 
of education to enable him to act rightly, 
honorably, successfully. Without preten- 
sion to prophetic honors, one may safely 
say, that a man coming into life is doomed 
to suffer ; and perhaps in various shapes 
of sorrow. Youth may fancy life one 
scene of gayety; but reality and fancy 
differ widely. If education has been 



rightly conducted, it will teach the man 
to suffer with dignity, with honor, nay 
with profit. « 

The man launches into life, and will be 
exactly, or very nearly, what his actual 
education purposed. It is well when, 
guarded, stored and stimulated, the youth 
starts forward, and in manhood prospers; 
answers his own wishes, his parents' ex- 
pectations, his tutor's labors, by actual 
success in his station, whatever it may be. 
The dreary hours of learning will then be 
recollected with pleasure, and the labor 
will be abundantly repaid. The end 
which education had in view will be at- 
tained, and its importance justly repaid. 

The alternative will show this impor- 
tance in a still clearer light. The man 
forced into action, obliged to take perhaps 
some prominent station, may fail to fill it 
properly ; may fail, notwithstanding his 
best endeavors and become unsuccessful 
in all his pursuits. To fail for want of 
knowing what education would have 
taught him, would be great disgrace ; but 
to fail when conscious of talents exerted, 
and carefulness ever active, will take away 
from the man's own mind, and from the 
opinions of bystanders, all that is dis- 
graceful. He may e^^en gain honor by 
exertions made to prevent, or by the dis- 
position shown during the deep adversity. 
The lessons of education may be as useful 
to him in this case as in the other. All 
that he has learned will help him in some 
shape, and the labor once endured will, 
even in his sorrowing moments, yield him 
assistance, satisfaction, and perhaps tran- 
quility, peace and joy. 

If the object of education is then so 
important, if the effects of it are so strong, 
so enduring, is it not worth all the labor 
and privation which it can ever occasion ? 

TAYLOR. 



34 



A WARNING TO YOUNG MEN. 



THERE is a prejudice against any man 
engaged in the manufacture of alcohol. 
I believe that from the time it issues 
from the coiled and poisohous worm in 
the distillery until it empties into the hell 
of death, that it is demoralizing to every- 
body that touches it, from the source to 
where it ends. I do not believe that any- 
body can contemplate the subject without 
being prejudiced against the crime. All 
they have to do is to think of the wrecks 
on either side of the stream of death, ot 
the suicides, of the insanity, of the pover- 
ty, of the destruction, of the little children 
tugging at the breast, of weeping and de- 
spairing Avives asking for bread, of the man 
struggling with imaginary serpents, pro- 
duced by this devilish thing ; and when 
you think of the jails, of the almshouses, 
of the asylums, of the prisons, and of the 
scaffolds, on either bank, I do not wonder 
that every thoughtful man is prejudiced 
against the vile stuff called alcohol. 

Intemperance cuts down youth in its 
vigor, manhood in its strength, and age in 
its weakness. It breaks the father's heart, 
bereaves the doting mother, extinguishes 
natural affection, erases conjugal love, 
blots out filial attachment, blights parental 
hope, and brings down mourning age in 
sorrow to the grave. It produces weak- 
ness, not strength; sickness, not health; 
death, not life. It makes wives widows, 
children orphans, fathers fiends, and all 
of them paupers and beggars. It feeds 
rheumatism, nurses gout, welcomes epi- 
demics, invites cholera, imports pestilence, 
and embraces consumption. It covers the 
land with idleness, poverty, disease, and 
crime. It fills your jails, supplies your 
almshouses, and demands your asylums. 
It engenders controversies, fosters quar- 
rels, and cherishes riots. It crowds your 
penitentiaries, and furnishes the victims 



for your scaffolds. It is the life-blood of 
the gambler, the aliment of the counter- 
feiter, the prop of the highwayman, and 
the support of the midnight incendiary. 
It countenances the liar, respects the thief, 
and esteems the blasphemer. It violates 
obligation, reverences fraud, and honors 
infamy. It defames benevolence, hates 
love, scorns virtue, and slanders innocence. 
It incites the father to butcher his helpless 
offspring, helps the husband to massacre 
his wife, and aids the child to grind the 
parricidal axe. It burns up man and 
consumes woman, detests life, curses God, 
and despises heaven. It suborns wit- 
nesses, nurses perjury, defiles the jury-box 
and stains the judicial ermine. It bribes 
voters, disqualifies votes, corrupts elec- 
tions, pollutes our institutions, and en- 
dangers our government. It degrades the 
citizen, debases the legislator, dishonci\« 
the statesman, and disarms the patriot. It 
brings shame, not honor; terror, not safety; 
despair, not hope ; misery, not happiness. 
And with the malevolence of a fiend it 
calmly surveys its frightful desolations; 
and, insatiated with havoc, it poisons 
felicity, kills peace, ruins morals, blights 
confidence, slays reputation, and wipes out 
national honor ; then curses the world and 
laughs at its ruin. 

It does all that, and more. It murders 
the soul. It is the sum of all villainies; 
the father of all crimes ; the mother of all 
abominations; the curse of curses; the 
devil's best friend, and God's worst enerayr 



ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. 



'OEJOICE, O young" man, in thy youtli^* 
K and let thy heart cheer thee in thy 
\ youth, and walk in the ways of tliine 
heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; 
but know thou, that for all these things 
God will bring thee into judgment. 



ECCLES. CH. VI., 



35 



THE WHISTLER. 



y / T/OU have heard," said a youth to his sweetheart, who stood 

Y "^Vhile he sat on a corn sheaf at daylight's decline — 
'^ You have heard of the Danish boy's whistle of wood ; 
I wish that the Danish boy's whistle were mine." 

"And what would you do with it? Tell me," she said, 
^\^lile an arch smile played over her beautiful face. 

"I would blow it," he answered, ^^and then my fair maid 
AVould fly to my side and would there take her place/' 

"Is that all you wish for?" Why, that may be yours 

Without any magic !" the fair maiden cried : 
*'A favor so slight one's good-nature secures;" 

And she playfully seated herself by his side. 

"I would blow it again," said the youth; "and the charm 

Would work so that not even modesty's check 
Would be able to keep from my neck your white arm.*^ 

She smiled, and she laid her white arm round his neck. 

*' Yet once more T would blow ; and the music divine 
Would bring me a third time an exciuisite bliss — 

You would lay your fair cheek to th's brown one of mine ; 
And your lips stealing past it would give me a kiss." 

The maiden laughed out in her innocent glee, — • 

" What a fool of yourself with the whistle you'd make I 

For only consider how silly ^twould be 

To sit there and whistle for what you might take." 



Strict Integrity is the Surest Way to Success. 



IT is very common for young men just is no getting along without it. There is 

commencing business to imagine that, so much competition and rivalry that to 

if they would advance their secular be strictly honest and yet succeed in busi- 

interests they must not be very scrupulous ness is out of the question, 
in binding themselves down to the strict Xow, if it were indeed so, I would say 

J ules of rectitude. to a young man, ''Then quit your busi- 

They must conform to custom ; and if, ness. Better dig, and beg too, than to 

in buying and selling, they sometimes say tamper with conscience, sin against God, 

the tilings that are not true, and do the and lose your soul." But is it so? Is it 

things that are not honest, why, their necessary, in order to succeed in business, 

neighbors do the same ; and verily there that you should adopt a standard of morals 

36 



STRICT INTEGRITY IS THE SUREST WAY TO SUCCESS. 



more lax and pliable than the one placed 
before you in the Bible ? 

Perhaps for a time a rigid adherence to 
rectitude might bear hard upon you ; but 
how would it be in the end ? Possibly 
your neighbor, by being less scrupulous 
than yourself, may invent a more expedi- 
tious way of a('(piiring a fortune. If he 
is willing to violate the dictates of con- 
science, to lie, and cheat, and trample 
on the rules of justice and honesty, 
he may indeed get the start of you, 
and rise suddenly to wealth and distinc- 
tion. But would you envy him his riches 
or be willing to place yourself in his situ- 
ation ? 

Sudden wealth, especially when ob- 
tained by dishonest means, rarely fails of 
bringing with it sudden ruin. Those who 
acquire it are of course beggared in their 
morals, and are often very soon beggared 
in property. Their riches are corrupted; 
and while they bring the curse of God on 
their immediate possessors, they usually 
entail misery and ruin upon their fami- 
lies. If it be admitted, then, that strict 
integrity is not always the shortest way to 
success, is it not the surest, the happiest, 
and the best ? 

A young man of thorough integrity 
may, it is true, find it difficult in the 
midst of dishonest competitors and rivals, 
to start in his business or profession ; but 
how long ere he will surmount every 
difficulty, draw around him patrons and 
friends, and rise in the confidence and 
support of all who know him? 

What if, in pursuing this course, you 
should not at the close of life have so 
much money by a few hundred dollars? 
Will not a fair character, an approving 
conscience, and an approving God, be an 
abundant compensation for this little defi- 
ciency in pelf? 



Oh, there is an hour coming when one 
whisper of an approving mind, one smile 
of an approving God, will be accounted 
of more value than the wealth of a thous- 
and worlds like this. In that hour, my 
young friends, nothing will sustain you 
but the consciousness of having been gov- 
erned in life by worthy and good princi- 
ples. 



H A \V E S , 



ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN. 



YOUNG men, you are the architects of 
your own fortunes. Pely upon your 
own strength of body and soul. Take 
for your star self-reliance, faith, honesty, 
and industry. Inscribe on your banner, 
" Ltick is a fool, pluck is a hero." Don't 
take too much advice — keep at your helm 
and steer your own ship, and remember 
that the great art of commanding is to 
take a fair share of the work. Don't 
practice too much humanity. Think well 
of yourself. Strike out. Assume your 
own position. Put potatoes in your cart, 
over a rough road, and small ones go to 
the bottom. Rise above the envious and 
jealous. Fire above the mark you intend 
to hit. Energy, invincible determination, 
with a right motive, are the levers that 
move the world. Don't drink. Don't 
chew. Don't smoke. Don't swear. Don't 
deceive. Don't read novels. Don't marry 
until you can support a wife. Be in 
earnest. Be self-reliant. Be generous. Be 
civil. Read the papers. Advertise your 
business. JNIake money, and do good with 
it. Love your God and fellow men. Love 
truth and virtue. liove your coiintrv, and 
obey its laws. 

If this advice be implicitly followed 
by the young men of the country the 
millennium is near at hand. 

NOAH PO R r K R, 1) . D. 



37 



ABILITY AND OPPORTUNITY, 



THESE are the conditions of success. 
Give a man power and a field in 
which to use it, and he must accom- 
plish something. He may not do and 
become all that he desires and dreams of, 
but his life cannot be a failure. I never 
hear men complaining of the want of 
ability. The most unsuccessful think 
that they could do great things if they 
only had the chance. Somehow^ or other 
something or somebody has always been 
in the way. Providence has hedged them 
in so that they could not carry out their 
jlans. They knew just how to get rich, 
but they lacked opportunity. 

Sit down by one who thus complains 
and ask him to tell you the story of his 
life. Before he gets half through he will 
g've you occasion to ask him, '^ Why 
didn't you do so at that time? Why 
didn't you stick to that piece of land and 
improve it, or to that business and develop 
it? Is not the present owner of that 
property rich ? Is not the man who took 
up the business you abandoned success- 
ful?" He will probably reply: '^Yes, 
l:hat was an opportunity ; but I did not 
i:hink so then. I saw it when it was too 
Jlate." In telling his story he w^ill proba- 
bly say, of his own accord, half a dozen 
times: "If I had known how things 
were going to turn I might have done as 
well as Mr. A. That farm of his was 
offered to me. I knew that it was a good 
one, and cheap, but I knew that it would 
require a great deal of hard work to get 
it cleared and fenced, to plant trees, vines, 
etc., and to secure water for irrigation. I 
did not like to undertake it. I am sorry 
now that I didn't. It was one of my 
o : portunities." 

Tlie truth is, God gives to all of us 
ability and opportunities enough to enable 



us to be moderately successful. If we 
fail, in ninety-five eases out of a hundred 
it is our own fault. We neg^lect to im- 
prove the talents with which our Creator 
endowed us, or we failed to enter the door 
that he opened for us. A man cannot 
expect that his whole life shall be made 
up of opportunities, that they will meet 
him at regular intervals as he goes on, 
like milestones by the roadside. Usually 
he has one or two, and if he neglects 
them he is like a man who takes the wrong 
road where several meet. The further he 
goes the worse he fares. 

A man's opportunity usually has Gome 
relation to his ability. It is an opening 
for a man of his talents and means. It is 
an opening for him to use what he has, 
faithfully and to the utmost. It requires 
toil, self-denial and faith. If he says: 
" I want a better opportunity than that ; 
I am worthy of a higher position than it 
offers ;" or if he says, " I won't work as 
hard and economize as closely as that 
opportunity demands," he may, in after 
years, see the folly of his pride and indo- 
lence. 

There are young men all over the land 
who want to get rich. They want to 
begin ^ not at the bottom of the ladder, 
but half way up. They want somebody 
to give them a lift, or carry them up in a 
balloon, so that they can avoid the early 
and arduous struggles of the majority of 
those who have been successful. No won- 
der that such men fail, and then com- 
plain of Providence. Grumbling is usually 
a miserable expedient that people re- 
sort to to drown the reproaches of con- 
science. They know that they have 
been foolish, but they try to persuade 
themselves that they have been unfor- 
tunate. 



38 



ARDOR OF YOUTH. 



W' 



HO shall guess what I may be ? 
Who can tell my fortune to me ? 
For bravest and brightest that ever 



was suno: 



May be — and shall be — the lot of the 
young. 

Hope, with her prizes and victories won, 
Shines in the blaze of my morning sun — 
Conquering Hope, with golden ray, 
Blessing my landscape far away. 

All my meadows and hills are green. 
And rippling waters glance between — 
All my skies are rosy bright. 
Laughing in triumph at yesternight. 

My heart, my heart within me swells, 
Panting and stirring its hundred wells ; 
For youth is a noble seed that springs 
Into the flower of heroes and kings ! 

Rich in the present, though poor in the 

past, 
I yearn for the future, vague and vast; 
And lo, what treasure of glorious things 
Giant Futurity sheds from his wings? 

Pleasures are there like dropping balms. 
And glory and honor with chaplets and 

palms. 
And mind well at ease, and gladness and 

health, 
\ river of peace and a mine of wealth ! 

Away with your counsels, and hinder me 

not, 
On, on let me press to my brilliant lot; 
Young and strong, and sanguine and free, 
How knowest thou what I may be ? 



? 



A CYCLE. 



PRING-TIME— is it spring-time? 
Why, as I remember spring, 
Almonds bloom and blackbirds sing ; 
Such a shower of tinted petals drifting to 
the clover floor, 



Such a multitudinous rapture raining frc^n 
sycamore; 
% And among the orchard trees — 
Acres musical with bees — 
Moans a wild dove, making silence seem more 
silent than before. 

Yes — that is the blackbird's note; 
Almond petals are afloat ; 
But I had not heard nor seen them, for my 

heart was far away. 
Birds and bees and fragrant orchards — ah! 
they cannot bring the May; 
For the human presence only, 
That has left my way so lonely, 
Ever can bring back the spring-time to my 
autumn of to-day. 

Autumn — is it autumn ? 

I remember autumn yields 
Dusty roads and stubble-fields, 
Weary hills, no longer rippled o'er their wind- 
swept slopes with grain. 
Trees all gray with dust, that gathers ever 
thicker till the rain ; 
And where noisy waters drove 
Downward from the heights above, 
Only bare, white channels wander stonily 
across the plain. 

Yes, I see the hills are dry. 
Stubble-fields about me lie. 
"What care I, when in the channels of my life 

once more I see 
Sweetest founts, long sealed and sunken, 
bursting upward, glad and free? 
Hills may parch or laugh in greenness, 
Sky be sadness or sereneness, 
Thou, my life, my best-beloved, all my spring- 
time comes with thee. 



BEAUTIFUL ALL GOLDEN YOUTH. 

OH beautiful all golden, gentle youth, 
Making thy palace in the careless front. 
And hopeful eye of man — eye yet the soul 
Hath lost the memories which (so Plato 
dreamed) 
Breathed glory from the earlier star it dwelt in. 
Oh, for one gale from thine exulting morning 
Stirring amidst the roses, where of old 
Love shook the dew-drops from his glancing 
hair. 

E, L. BULWER. 



39 



WHEN THOU ART NEAR ME. 



tf 



HEX thou art near me, 
Sorrow seems to fly, 
And when I think, as well I may, 
That on this earth there is no one 
More blest than I. 



But when thou leav'st me, 

Doubts and fears arise. 
And darkness reigns, 

AVhere all before was light. 
The sunshine of my soul 

Is in those eyes. 
And when they leave me 

All the world is night. 

But when thou art near me, 

Sorrow seems to fly. 
And then I feel, as well I may. 
That on this earth there dwells not one 

So blest as I. 

LADY JANE SCOTT. 



SPRING THOUGHTS. 



L 



ITTLE bird, where do you fly so fast? 

"Oh, winter is ended, at last, at last! 

And I fly in haste to my northern 

home, 
For winter has ended, and spring has 
come." 



Dear little bird, with the feathers gay, 
A moment listen, a moment stay ! 
I have a love in that northern land, — 
I stand alone on a foreign strand; 
I cannot fly with thee to woo her. 
Rut thou shalt take my greeting to her. 
So, when thou art come to that distant 

shore, 
Oh, hasten to my darling's door! 

Sing sweet and low, sing loud and clear. 
And thou shalt catch her listening ear ; 
Tell her, her eyes' remembered light 
Is all that makes my heaven bright; 
Tell her, her sweet lips' parting word 
Still day and night by me is heard; 
That every hour of every day 
I think of her so far away ; 
That time nor space, nor life nor death, 



My heart from her can sever, — 

For I love my love with every breath, 

I love my love forever I 

And the little flowers in the valley sweet, 
The happy flowers that kiss her feet ! 
Greet them a thousand times for me. 
And tell them that across the sea 
All strange, bright blossoms come 'udth 

May, 
But none are fair to me as they ! 



Translated by L. C. 



EMANUEL GEIBEL, 



ABSENCE. 

WHAT shall I do with all the days and 
hours 
That must be counted ere I see thy 
face? 
How shall I charm the interval that lowers 
Between this time and that sweet time of 
grace? 
Still I in slumber steep each weary sense— 

"Weary with longing? Shall I flee away 
Into past days, and ^ith some fond pretence 

Cheat myself to forget the present day ? 
Shall love for thee lay on my soul the sin 

Of casting from me God's great gift of time ? 
Shall I these mists of memory locked within, 
Leave and forget life's purposes sublime? 
Oh, how, and by what means, may I contrive 
To bring the hour that brings thee back 
more near? 
How may I teach my drooping hope to live 

Until that blessed time, and thou art here ? 
I'll tell thee ; for thy sake I will lay hold 

Of all good aims, and consecrate to thee 
In worthy deeds, each moment that is told 

^\Tiile thou, beloved one ! art far from me. 
For thee I will arouse my thoughts to try 
All heavenward flights, all high and holy 
strains ; 
For thy dear sake I will walk patiently 

Through these long hours, nor call their 
minutes pains. 
I ^-ill this dreary blank of absence make 

A noble task-time; and will therein strive 
To follow excellence, and to o'ertake 

More good than I have won since yet I live. 
So may this doomed time build up in me 

A thousand graces, which sh„ J thus be thine 
So may my love and longing hallowed be. 
And thy dear thought an influence di\dne. 

FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE. 



40 



HEARTSEASE. 



OF all the bonny buds that blow 
In bright or cloudy weather, 
or all the flowers that come and go 
The whole twelve moons together, 
The little purple pansy brings 
Thoughts of the sweetest, saddest things. 

I had a little lover once, 

Who used to give me posies; 

His eyes were blue as hyacinths, 
His lips were red as roses — 

And everybody loved to praise 

His pretty looks and winsome ways. 

The girls that went to school with me 
Made little jealous speeches, 

Because he brought me royally 
His biggest plums and peaches, 

And always at the door would wait 

To carry home my books and slate. 

'They couldn't see"— with pout and fling— 

" The mighty fascination 
About that little snub-nosed thing 

To win such admiration; 
As if there weren't a dozen girls 
With nicer eyes and longer curls." 

And this I knew as well as they. 

And never could see clearly 
Why more than Marion or May, 

I should be loved so dearly. 
So once I asked him, why was this? 
He only answered with a kiss. 

Until I teased him — "Tell me why — 

I want to know the reason;" 
W^hen from the garden-bed close by 

(The pansies were in season) 
He plucked and gave a flower to me, 
With sweet and simple gravity. 

' The garden is in bloom," he said, 
" With lilies pale and slender, 

With roses and verbenas red. 
And fuchsias' purple splendor; 

But over and abovo the rest, 

This little heartsease suits me best." 



"Am I your little heartsease, then?" 
I asked with blushing pleasure; 

ITe answered yes! and yes again — 
Heartsease and dearest treasure; 

That the round world and all the sea 

Held nothing half so sweet as me. 

I listened with a proud delight 
Too rare for words to capture. 

Nor ever dreamed what sudden blight 
Would come to chill my rapture. 

Could I foresee the tender bloom 

Of pansies round a little tomb ? 

Life holds some stern experience. 

As most of us discover. 
And I've had other losses since 

I lost my little lover; 
But still this purple ])ansy brings 
Thoughts of the saddest, sweetest things. 

MARY E. BRADLEY. 



HAD YOU EVER A COUSIN, TOM? 



41 



T Tad you ever a cousin, Tom ? 
M Did your cousin happen to sing? 
I A Sisters we've all by the dozen, Tom, 
A But a cousin's a ditt'erent thing. 

There's something in a sister's lip, 

When you give her a good-night kiss, 
That savors so much of relationship, 

That nothing occurs amiss. 
But a cousin's lip, if you once unite, 

With yours in the quietest way. 
Instead of sleeping a wink that night. 

You'll be dreaming the following day. 

No one thinks any harm, Tom, 

With a cousin to see you talk, 
And no one feels an alarm, Tom, 

At a quiet, cousinly walk. 
But, Tom, you'll find out what I happen to 
know, 

That such walks often grow into straying, 
And the voices of cousins are sometimes so low, 

Heaven only knows what they are saying. 



HAD YOU EVER A COUSIN, TOM? 



How again there happens so often, Tom, 

Soft pressure of hands and of fingers, 
And looks that are moulded to soften, Tom, 

And tones on which memory lingers. 
So that before the walk is half over the strings 

Of your heart are all called into play, 
By the voice of those fair, divine, sisterh^ things 

In not quite the most brotherly wa3\ 

And the voice of a sister may bring to you, 
Tom, 

Such notes as the angels woo. 
But I fear should your cousin sing to you, Tom, 

You'd take her for an angel too. 
For so curious a note is this note of theirs, 

That you'd fancy the voice that gave it, 
Was all the while singing the national airs. 

Instead of the Psalms of David. 

I once had a cousin that sang to me, Tom, 

And her name shall be nameless now. 
But the sound of that voice is still young, Tom, 

Though we are no longer so. 
'Tis folly to dream of a lover of green 

When there's not a leaf on the tree. 
But between singing and walking that cousin 
has been — 

God forg-ive her — the ruin of me. 



WEDDED. 



rf OME quick and bitter words we said, 
^l\ And then we parted. How the sun 
r^ Swam through a sullen sea of grey ! 

A chill fell on the summer day. 
Life's best and happiest hours were done, 
Friendship was dead. 

How proud we went our separate ways 
And spake no w^ords and made no moan; 
She braided up her flowing hair, 
That I had always called so fair, 
Although she scorned my loving tone, 
My word of praise. 

And I ? I matched her scorn with scorn, 
I hated her with all my heart. 
Until — we chanced to meet one day ; 
She turned her pretty head away ; 
I saw two pearly tear-drops start, 
Lo 1 love was born. 



Some fond, repenting word I said, 
She answered only with a sigh ; 
But when I took her hand in mine 
A radiant glory half divine 
Flooded the earth and filled the sky. 
Now we are wed. 



SUCCESS OF YOUNG MEN. 



THE greatest captains of ancient and 
modern times, both conquered Italy 
at twenty-five. Youth, extreme 
youth, overthrew the Persian empire. 
Don John, of Austria, won Lepanto at 
twenty-five, the greatest battle of modern 
times; had it not been for the jealousy of 
Philip, the next year lie would have been 
Emperor of Mauritania. Gaston de Foix 
was only twenty-two when lie stood a 
victor on the plain of Ravenna. Every 
one remembers Conde and Roeroy at the 
same age. Gustavus Adolphus died at 
thirty-eight — look at his captains, that 
wonderful Duke of Wiemar, only thirty- 
six when he died. Bauer himself, after 
all his miracles, died at forty-five. Cortes 
was little more than thirty when he gazed 
upon the golden cupolas of Mexico. 
When Maurice of Saxony died at thirty- 
two all Europe acknowledged the loss of 
the greatest captain and the profoundest 
statesman of the age. Then there is 
Nelson, Clive ; but these are warriors, and 
perhaps you may think there are greater 
things than war; I do not. I worship 
the Lord of Hosts. But take the most 
illustrious achievements of civil prudence. 
Innocent III., the greatest of the popes, 
was the despot of Christendom at thirty- 
seven. John de Medici was a cardinal at 
fifteen, and, Guicciardini tells us, baffled 
with his craft Ferdinand of Aragon him- 
self. He was pope, as Leo X., at thirty- 
seven. Luther robbed even him of his 



42 



SUCCESS OF YOUNG MEN. 



richest province at thirty-five. Take 
Ignatius Loyola and John Wesley; they 
woi'kecl with young brains. Ignatius was 
only thirty when he made his pilgrimage, 
and wrote the ^'Spiritual Exercises.'' 
Pascal wrote a great work at sixteen (the 
greatesi of Frenchmen), and died at thirty- 
seven. Ah! that fatal thirty-seven! 
\Vhich reminds me of Bjrou, greater even 
as a man than a writer. Was it experi- 
ence that guided the pencil of Raphael 
when he painted the palaces of Rome? 
He died at thirty-seven. Richelieu was 
secretary of state at thirty-one. Well, 
then, there are Bolingbroke and Pitt, both 
ministers before other men leave off 
cricket. Grotiuswas in practice at seven- 
teen, and attorney-general at twenty-four. 
And Acquavivia was general of the Jes- 
uits, ruled every cabinet in Europe, and 
colonized America before he was thirty- 
seven. What a career ! The secret sway 
of Europe ! That was indeed a position ! 
But it is needless to multiply instances — 
the history of heroes is the history of 
youth. 



DISRAELI. 



J 



THE GIRL FOR ME. 

UST iiiir enough to be pretty, 
Just gentle enough to be sweet, 

Just saucy enough to be witty, 
Just dainty enough to be neat. 



Just tall enough to be graceful, 

Just slight enough for a fay, 
Just dress enough to be tasteful. 

Just merry enough to be gay. 

Just tears enough to be tender, 

Just sighs enough to be sad; 
Tones soil enough to remember 

Your heart through the cadence made 
glad. 



Just meek enough for submission. 
Just bold enough to be brave, 

Just pride enough for ambition, 

Just thoughtful enough to be grave. 

A tongue that can talk without harming, 
Just mischief enouiih to tease. 

Manners i)leasant enough to be charming, 
That put you at once at your ease. 

Disdain for silly j:) resumption, 

Sarcasm to answer a fool, 
Cool contempt shown to assumption, 

Proper dignity always the rule. 

Flights of fairy fancy ethereal, 
Devotion to science full paid, 

Stuff of the sort of material 
Poets and painters are made. 

Generous enough, and kind-hearted, 

Pure as the angels above; 
Oh, from her may I never be parted. 

For such is the maiden I love. 



COUNSEL TO THE YOUNG. 



MIGHT I give counsel to my young 
hearer, I would say. Try to frequent 
the company of your betters; in 
books and life that is the most wholesome 
society; learn to admire rightly — the 
great pleasure of life is that. Note what 
the great specially admire; they admire 
great things: narrow spirits admire basely 
and worship meanly. 

TH AC K ER AY. 



YOUTH AND LOVE. 



43 



On ! what without our Youth 
Would Love be? What would \\)u!h be 
without Love? 
Youth lends its joy and sweetness, passion, 
truth, 
Heart, soul, and all that seems as from 
above; 
But languishing with years it grows uncouth; 
One of few things experience don't improve. 

BYRON. 



YOUR FIRST SWEETHEART. 




f 



sleep hours before, waltzed and 
and made themselves sick over oysters 
and champagne, you were favored with a 
glance of her eye or whisper of her lip, 
you ascended to the seventh heaven imme- 
diately. When once upon a certain mem- 
orable eve she polked with the druggist 
clerk, and never even looked at you, how 
miserable you were ! It is funny to think 
of now, but it was not funny Ihen, for 
you were awfully in earnest. 

Once at a picnic she wore a white dress, 
and had roses twined in her black hair, 
and she looked so much like a bride 
that you fairly trembled ; sometimes you 
thought in just such snowy costume, with 
just such blossoms in her hair, she might 
stand beside the altar, and you, most blessed 
of all mortals, might pkice a golden ring 
upon her finger; and when you were left 



OU can never forget her. She was so 
very young, and innocent, and pretty. 
She had such a way of looking at 
you over her hymn-book in Church. She 
alone of all the world did not think you a 
^> boy of eighteen, but wondered at your 
size and learning, and your faint fore- 
shadowing of a sandy mustache, and be- 
lieved every inch of you a man. AVhen at 
those stupid evening parties where boys 
and girls, who should have been eating 
suppers of bread and milk, and gone to 

flirted, alone with her a moment, some of ^oai 
thoughts would form themselves into 
words, and though she blushed and ran 
away, and would not let you kiss her, she 
did not seem to be angry. And then 
when you were somehow parted for a little 
while, and when you met again, she was 
walking with a gentleman of twenty-eight 
or thirty, and had neither word nor smile 
for you, and some well-meaning gossip 
informed you shortly after that she was 
" engaged " to the tall gentleman in black 
whiskers, and that it was "a splendid 
matcli.^^ It was terrible news to you then, 
and sent you off to some great city far from 
your native place, where, after a good deal 
of youthful grief, and many resolutions to 
die and haunt her, you recovered your 
equanimity and began to make money, 
and to call love stuff and nonsense. 




IK MARVEL. 



SIXTEEN. 



ULL sixteen Summers had adorned her face, 
Warm'd every sense, and waken'd every rrace ; 
Her eye look'd sweetness, gently heav'd her breast, 
Her shape, her motion, graceful ease expressed. 
And to this fair, this finish'd form, were join'd 
The softest i^assions, and the purest mind. 



PODSLE^- 



44 



A GIRL'S LAUGH, 



A GIRL'S LAUGH. 



IS there anything in life so lovely and 
poetical as the laugh and merriment of 
a young girl, who still in harmony with 
all her powers, sports with you in luxu- 
riant freedom, and in her mirthfulness 
neither despises nor dislikes ? Her gravity 
is seldom as innocent as her playfulness ; 
still less that haughty discontent which 
converts the youthful Psyche into a dull, 
thick, buzzing, wing-drooping night-moth. 
Never fear that feminine playfulness will 
exclude depth of character and sensibility. 
Let then the laughter-loving creatures 
giggle on at one another, and especially 
at the first clumsy make-game wnght w^ho 
comes among them, even should he be the 
>vriter of this paragraph ! 

JEAN PAUL RICHTER. 



WISDOM GAINED BY EXPERIENCE 

MORE COSTLY AND PERILOUS THAN 
BY LEARNING. 



LEARNING teacheth more in one year 
than experience in twenty ; and learn- 
ing teacheth safely when experience 
maketh more miserable than wnse. He 
hazardeth sore that maketh wise by expe- 
rience. An unhappy shipmaster he is 
that is made cunning by many shipwrecks, 
a miserable merchant that is neither rich 
nor wise, but after some bank routs. It is 
costly wisdom that is bought by experi- 
euce. We know by experience itself that 
it is a marvellous pain to find out, but a 
short way by long wandering. And surely 
he that would prove wise by experience, 
he may be witty indeed, but even like a 
swift runner, that runneth fast out of his 
way, and upon the night, he knoweth not 
whither. And, verily, they be fewest in 
number that be happy or wiser by un- 
learned experience. And look well upon 



the former life of those few, whether your 
example be old or young, who without 
learning have gathered, by long experi- 
ence, a little wisdom and some happiness: 
and w^ien you do consider what mischief 
they have committed, what dangers they 
have escaped (and yet twenty for one do 
perish in the adventure), then think well 
v/ith yourself, whether ye would that your 
own son should come to wisdom and hap- 
piness by the 'svay of such experience or no. 



ROGER ASCHAM, 



THE LONG PATH. 



I FELT very weak indeed (though of a 
tolerably robust habit), as we came 
opposite the head of this jiath on that 
morning. I think I tried to speak twice 
without making myself distinctly audible. 
At last I got out the question : **Will you 
take the long path Avith mef "Cer- 
tainly,'^ said the school-mistress, " with 
much pleasure." "Think," I said, "be- 
fore you answer ; if you take the long 
path with me now, I shall interpret it 
that we are to part no more !" The school- 
mistress stepped back with a sudden 
movement, as if an arrow had struck her. 

One of the long granite blocks, used as 
seats, was hard by. "Pray sit down, I 
said. "No — no,'' she answered, softly; 
*' I will walk the long j;a//t witli you !" 

The old gentleman who sits opposite, 
met us w^alking arm in arm, about the 
middle of the long path, and said, very 
charmingly, " Good morning, my dears'!" 

O . W . HOLMES. 



Be direct in your speech, but still more 
so in your actions; words are evanescent, 
but acts will endure forever. 

PLATO, 



45 



THE EVENING TIME. 



THE EVENING TIME. 



TOGETHEB. we walked in the evening time, 
Above us the sky spread golden and clear, 
And he bent his head and looked in my 
eyes, 
As if he held me of all most dear, 

Oh ! it was sweet in the evening time ! 

Grayer the light grew and grayer still. 

The rooks flitted home through the purple 

shade ; 
The nightingales sang where the thorns stood 

high. 
As I walked with him in the woodland glade. 
Oh! it was sweet in the evening time ! 

And our pathway went through fields of wheat; 
Narrow that path and rough the way, 
But he was near and the birds sang true, 
And the stars came out in. the twilight gray. 
Oh ! it was sweet in the evening time I 

Softly he spoke of the days long past. 
Softly of blessed days to be ; 
Close to his arm and closer I prest. 
The cornfield path was Eden to me. 

Oh ! it was sweet in the evening time ! 

And the latest gleams of daylight died ; 

My hand in his enfolded lay ; 

We swept the dew from the wheat as we 

passed. 
For narrower, narrower, wound the way. 
Oh ! it was sweet in the evening time. 

He looked in the depths of my eyes, and said, 
"Sorrow and gladness will come for us, sweet; 
But together we'll walk through the fields of 

Hfe 
Close as we walked through the fields of 

wheat." 

A. c. c. 



LOVE. 



TRUE Love is but a humble, low-born thing, 
And hath its food served up in earthen 
ware ; 
It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand, 
Through the every-dayness of this work-day 

world, 
Baring its tender feet to every roughness, 
Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray 



From Beauty's law of plainness and content; 
A simple, fire-side thing, whose quiet smile 
Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a home; 
Which, when our autumn com_eth, as it must, 
And life in the chill wind shivers bare and 

leafless. 
Shall still be blest with Indian summer youth 
In bleak November, and, with thankful heart, 
Smile on its ample stores of garnered fruit, 
As full of sunshine to our aged eyes 
As when it nursed the blossoms of our spring. 
Such is true Love, which steals into the heart 
W^ith feet as silent as the lightsome aawn 
That kisses smooth the rough brows of the 

dark_, 
And hath its will through blissful gentleness — 
Not like a rocket, which, with savage glare, 
Whirs suddenly ujd, then bursts, and leaves 

the night 
Painfully quivering on the dazed eyes; 
A Love that gives and takes, that sceth faults, 
Not with flaw-seeking eyes like needle-points, 
But, loving kindly, ever looks them down 
With the o'ercoming faith of meek forgiveness; 
A Love that shall be new and fresh each houi 
As is the golden mystery of sunset, 
Or the sweet coming of the evening star, 
Alike, and yet most unlike, every day. 
And seeming ever best and fairest now. 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



CUPID SWALLOWED. 



T) OTHER day, as I was twining 
Roses, for a crown to dine in, 
What, of all things, midst the heapj 
Should I light on, fast asleep, 
But the little desperate elf, 
The tiny traitor, — Love himself! 
By the wings I pinch 'd him up 
Like a bee, and in a cup 
Of my wine I plunged and sank him; 
And what d'ye think laid? I d ra n k himl 
Faith, I thought him dead. Not lie ! 
There he lives Avith tenfold glee ; 
And now this moment, with his wings 
I feel him tickling my heart-strings. 



LEIGH HUNT. 



46 



THE GIRL OF CADIZ. 



THE GIRL OF CADIZ. 



Oil never talk again to me 
Of northern climes and British ladies ; 
It has not been your lot to see, 
Like me, tlie lovely girl of Cadiz. 
Although her eye be not of blue, 

Nor fair her locks, like English lasses, 
How far its own expressive hue 
The languid azure eye surpasses ! 

nometheus-like, from heaven she stole 

The fire that through those silken lashes 
In darkest glances seems to roll. 

From eyes that cannot hide their flashes ; 
And as along her bosom steal 

In lengthen'd flow her raven tresses, 
You'd swear each clustering lock could feel, 

And curl'd to give her neck caresses. 

Our English maids are long to woo, 

And frigid even in possession; 
And if their charms be fair to view, 

Their lips are slow at Love's confession : 
But born beneath a brighter sun, 

For love ordain'd the Spanish maid is, 
And who — when fondly, fairly won,— 

Enchants you like the Girl of Cadiz? 

The Spanish maid is no coquette, 

Nor joys to see a lover tremble, 
And if she loves, or if she hate, 

Alike she knows not to dissemble. 
Her heart can ne'er be bought or sold — 

Howe'er it beats, it beats sincerely ; 
And though it will not bend to gold, 

'Twill love you long and love you dearly. 

The Spanish girl that meets your love 

Ne'er taunts you with a mock denial, 
For every thought is bent to pi ove 

Her passion in the hour of trial. 
When thronging foemen menace Spain, 

She dares the deed and shares the danger; 
And should her lover press the plain, 

She hurls the spear, her love's avenger. 

And when, beneath the evening star, 

She mingles in the gay Bolero, 
Or sings to her attuned guitar 

Of Christian knight or Moorish hero. 



Or counts her beads with fairy hand 
Beneath the twinkling rays of Hesper, 

Or joins devotion's choral band. 
To chant the sweet and hallow'd vesper. 

In each her charms the heart must move 

Of all who venture to behold her; 
Tlien let no maids less fair reprove 

Because her bosom is not colder : 
Through many a clime 'tis mine to roam, 

Where many a soft and melting maid is, 
But none abroad, and few at home. 

May match the dark-eyed girl of Cadiz. 

LORD BYRON 



THE MAIDEN'S CHOICE, 



n ENTEEL in personage, 
[^ Conduct and equipage; 
^\ Noble by heritage ; 

Generous and free ; 

Brave, not romantic ; 
Learn 'd, not pedantic ; 
Frolic, not frantic — 
This must he be. 

Honor maintaining. 
Meanness disdaining. 
Still entertaining. 

Engaging and new ; 

Neat, but not finical ; 
Sage, but not cynical ; 
Never tyrannical, 
But ever true. 



HENRY CAREV 



KISSES. 



WWY love a!id I for kisses play 'd: 

I Yl She would keep stakes — I was content) 

JL» I But when I won, she would be paid; 

1 This made me ask her what .she meant. 
"Pray, since I see," quoth she, "your wrang- 
ling vein. 
Take your own kisses; give me mme again." 

WILLIAM STRODE. 



47 



L 



LOVE. 

OVE is not made of kisses, or of sighs, 
Of clinging hands, or of the sorceries 
And subtle witchcrafts of alluring eyes. 



Love is not made of broken whispers; no ! 
Nor of the blushing cheek, whose answering 

glow 
Tells that the ear has heard the accents low. 

Love is not made of tears, nor yet of smiles, 
Of quivering lips, or of enticing wiles : 
Love is not tempted ; he himself beguiles. 

This is Love's language, but this is not Love. 

If we know aught of Love, how shall we dare 
To say that this is Love, w^hen w^ell aware 
That these are common things, and Love is 
rare? 

As separate streams may, blending, ever roll 
In course united, so of soul to soul, 
Love is the union into one sweet whole. 

As molten metals mingle; as a chord 

Swells sweet in harmony ; when Love is Lord, 

Two hearts are one, as letters form a word. 

One heart, one mind, one soul, and one desire, 

A kindred fancy, and a sister fire 

Of thought and passion; these can Love inspire. 

This makes a heaven of earth; for this is Love. 

CHAMBERS* JOURNAL. 



G 



WOOING. 

APTIVE little hand, 
Wherefore trembling so? 
Like a fluttering bird, 
All your pulses stirred ; 
Would you, if you could— 
Would you go ? 

Drooping, downcast eyes, 
Filled with love's own light, 
'Neath your snowy lid 
All my w^orld lies hid: 
Why so shyly veiled 
From my sight? 



Lovely quivering lips. 
With your wealth of red, 
Speak the longed-for word, 
First in Eden heard. 
In your own sweet way 
Be it said. 

Eager, restless heart, 
Longing for your mate, 
"What have you to fear? 
Find contentment here; 
To my tender love 
Trust your fate. 

Dainty little maid, 
Graced with charms so sweety 
One bright glance bestow; 
Kay — but I will know 
If — ah, yes, for me. 
Life's complete! 



I 



I PRITHEE SEND ME BACK MY 
HEART. 

PRITHEE send me back my heart, 

Since I cannot have thine, 
For if from yours you will not part, 

"Why, then, shouldst thou have mine? 

Yet now I think on't, let it lie ; 

To find it were in vain ; 
For thou'st a thief in either eye 

Would steal it back again. 

Why should two hearts in one breast lie. 

And yet not lodge together ? 
O Love ! where is thy sj^mpathy, 

If thus our breasts thou sever ? 

But love is such a mysterj% 

I cannot find it out; 
For when I think I'm best resolved, 

I then am in most doubt. 

Then farewell care, and farewell woe, 
I will^io longer pine ; ? 

For I'll believe I have her heart, 
As much as she has mine. 

SIR JOHN SUCKLING. 



It is the fault of Youth that it cannot 
govern its own impetuositj. 



18 



RORY O'MORE. 

f/bUNG Rory O'More courted Kathleen bawn; 

I He was bold as the hawk, and she soft as the dawn; 
He wish'd m his heart pretty Kathleen to please, 
And he thought the best way to do that was to tease. 
" Now, Rory, be aisy," sweet Kathleen would cry, 
Reproof on her lip, but a smile in her eye — 
"With your tricks, I don't know, in troth, what I'm aboux; 
Faith, you've teased till I've put on my cloak inside out." 
"Och, jewel," says Rory, "that same is the way 
You've thrated my heart for this many a day ; 
And 'tis plased that I am, and why not, to be sure ? 
For 'tis aU for good luck," says bold Rory O'More. 

"Indeed, then," says Kathleen, "don't think of the like, 
For I half gave a promise to soothering Mike ; 
The ground that I walk on he loves, I'll be bound." 
"Faith," says Rory, "I'd rather love you than the ground." 
"Now, Rory, I'U cry if you don't let me go; 
Sure I dhrame every night I'm hating you so." 
"Och!" says Rory, "that same I'm delighted to hear, 
For dhrames always go by conthraries, my dear. 
So, jewel, keep dhramin' that same till you die. 
And bright mornin' will give dirty night the black He ; 
And 'tis plased that I am, and why not, to be sure ? 
Since 'tis all for good luck," says bold Rory O'More. 

''Arrah, Kathleen, my darlint, you've teased me enough; 
Sure I've thrash 'd, for your sake, Dinny Grimes and Jim Duff' 
And I've made myself, dhrinkin' your health, quite a baste, 
So I think, after that, I may talk to the praist." 
Then Rory, the rogue, stole his arm round her neck, 
So soft and so white, without freckle or speck ; 
And he look'd in her eyes, that were beaming with light. 
And he kiss'd her sweet lips — don't you think he was right f 
" Now, Rory, leave off, sir, you'll hug me no more. 
That's eight times to-day that you've kiss'd me before.'* 
"Then here goes another," says he, to make sure, 
For there's luck in odd numbers," says Rory O'More. 

SAMUEL LOVKR. 



In the meanest hut is a romance, if you knew the hearts there. 

V A N H A G E N" VON E N S E, 

4b 49 



THE SHEPHERD'S RESOLUTION. 



? 



HALL I, wasting in despair, 
Die because a woman's fair? 
Or make pale my cheeks with care 
'Cause another's rosy are? 
Be she fairer than the day 
Or the flowery meads of May, 
If she be not so to me 
WTiat care I how fair she be ? 

Shall my foolish heart be pined 

'Cause I see a woman kind ; 

Or a well-disposed nature 

Joined to a lovely feature ? 

Be she meeker, kinder than 

Turtle-do\e or pelican, 
If she be not so to me 
T\Tiat care I how kind she be ? 

Shall a woman's virtues move 
Me to perish for her love ? 
Or her merit's value known 
Make me quite forget my own ? 
Be she with that goodness blest, 
Which may gain her name of Best; 
If she be not such to me, 
What care I how good she be ? 

'Cause her fortunes seem too high, 
Shall I play the fool and die ? 
Those that bear a noble mind 
^^^lere they want of riches find, 
Think what -^Nith them they would do 
That "without them dare to woo ; 
And unless that mind I see, 
What care I how great she be ? 

Great or good, or kind or fair, 
I will ne'er the more despair ; 
If she love me, this believe, 
I will die ere she shall grieve ; 
If she slight me when I woo, 
I can scorn and bid her go ; 
For if she be not for me. 
What care I for whom she be ? 

GEORGE WITHER. 



I 



Which Neptune obey; 
Over rocks that are steepest, 

Love will find out the way. 
Where there is no place 

For the glow-worm to he ; 
Where there is no place 

For receipt of a fly ; 
T\Tiere the midge dare not vent^3^eJ 

Lest herself fast she lay ; 
If love come, he v^ill enter. 

And soon find out his way. 

You may esteem him 

A child for his might ; 
Or you may deem him 

A coward from his flight ; 
But if she, whom Love doth honor, 

Be concealed from the day. 
Set a thousand guards upon her, 

Love "will find out the way. 

Some think to lose him 

By having him confined. 
And some do suppose him. 

Poor thing, to be blind; 
But if ne'er so close ye wall him. 

Do the best that you may. 
Blind love, if so ye call him, 

Will find out his way. 

You may train the ea^le 

To stoop to your fist; 
Or you may iuA'eigle 

The phenix of the east; 
The lioness, ye may move her 

To give o'er her prey ; 
But you'll ne'r stop a lover : 

He "will find out his way. 

PERCY'S RELIOUES. 



A BIRD-SONG. 



T'S a year almost that I have not seen her; 
Oh ! last summer green things were greener, 
Brambles fewer, the blue skv bluer. 



LOVE WILL FIND OUT THE WAY. 







VER the mountains. 
And over the waves ; 

Under the fountains, 
And under the graves; 

Under Soods that are deepest, 



It's well-nigh summer, for there's a sw^How; 
Come one swallow, his mate will follow. 
The bird-race quicken and wheel and thicltea. 

O happy swallow, whose mate "will follow 
O'er height and hollow I I'd be a swallow 
To build, this weather, our nest together. 

CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI, 



50 



COUNSELS TO YOUTH, 



KTeVER be cast down by trifles. If a 
|\j spider breaks his web twenty times, 
X twenty times will he mend it again. 
Make up your minds to do a thing, and 
you will do it. Fear not if trouble comes 
upon you ; keep up your spirits, though 
the day may be a dark one. 

"Troubles never hist forever; 
The darkest day will pass away." 

If the sun is going down, look up to 
the stars; if the earth is dark, keep your 
eyes on heaven. With God's presence and 
God's promise, a man or child may be 
cheerful. 

"Never despair when fog's in the air, 
A sunshiny morning will come without 
warning!" 

Mind what you run after ! Never be 
content with a bubble that will burst, or 
a fire-wood that will end in smoke and 
darkness. But that which you can keep, 
and which is worth keeping. 

"Something sterling that will stay 
When gold and silver fly away!" 

Fight hard against a hasty temper. 
Anger will come, but resist it strongly. A 
spark may set a house on fire. A fit of 
passion may give you cause to mourn all 
the days of your life. Never revenge an 
injury. 

"TTe that revengeth knoweth no rest; 

The meek possess a peaceful breast!" 
If you have an enemy, act kindly to 
him, and make him your friend. You 
may not win him over at once, but try 
again. Let one kinduess be followed by 
another, till you have compassed your 
end. By little and by little great things 
are completed. 

"Water falling day by day, 
Wears the hardest rock away." 

And so repeated kindness will soften a 
heart of stone. 



Whatever you do, do it willingly. A 
boy that is whipped at school never learns 
his lessons well. A man that is compelled 
to work, cares not how badly it is per- 
formed. 

Evil thoughts are worse enemies than 
lions and tigers, for we can get out of the 
way of wild beasts. Keep your heads 
and hearts full of good thoughts, that bad 
thoughts may not find room. 



SERENADE. 



? 



TARS of the summer night I 
Far in yon azure deeps, 
Hide, hide your golden light! 
She sleeps ! 
My lady sleeps! 
Sleeps ! 

Moon of the summer night ! 

Far down yon western steeps, 
Sink, sink in silver light ! 
She sleeps ! 
My lady sleeps ! 
Sleeps! 

Wind of the summer night! 

Where yonder woodbine creeps. 
Fold, fold thy pinions light ! 
She -sleeps ! 
My lady sleeps ! 
Sleeps ! 

Dreams of the summer night ! 

Tell her, her lover keeps 
Watch, while in slunil)ers iight 
She sleej)s ! 
My lady sleeps ! 
Sleeps ! 

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 



Oi 



\ 



AT THE CHURCH GATE. 

LTHOUGH I enter not, 
Yet round al;»out the spot 

Oft-times I hover : 
And near the sacred gate, 
With longing eyes I wait, 
Expectant of her. 



The Minster hell tolls out 
Above the city's rout, 

And noise and huniniing: 
They've hushed the Minster bell; 
The organ 'gins to swell : 

She's coming, she's coming ! 

My lady comes at last, 
Timid, and stepping fast. 

And hastening hither, 
"With modest eyes downcast : 
She comes — ^she's here — she's past — 

May heaven go with her ! 

Kneel undisturbed, fair saint ! 
Pour out your praise or plaint 

Meekly and duly ; 
I will not enter there 
To sully your pure prayer 

With thoughts unruly. 

But suffer me to pace 
Eound the forbidden place. 

Lingering a minute 
Like outcast spiiits who wait 
And see through heaven's gate 

Angels within it. 

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 



W 



A MA FUTURE. 

HEEE waitest thou. 
Lady I am to love. Thou comest not, 
Thou knowest of my sad and lonely lot, 
I looked for thee ere now. 



It is the May, 
And each sweet sister soul hath found its 

brother ; 
Only we trs'o seek fondly each the other, 

■And, seeking, still delay. 

'Wliere art thou, sweet? 
I long for thee as thhsty lips for streams; 
Oh, gentle promised angel of my dreams, 

VThx do we never meet? 



Thou art as 1 — 
Thy soul doth wait for mine, as mine for thee ; 
We cannot hve apart — ^must meeting be 

Xever before we die ? 

Dear soul, not sol 
For time doth keep for us some happy years, 
And God hath portioned us our smiles and 
tears ; 

Thou knowest, and I know. 

Yes, we shall meet ; 
And therefore let our searching be the stronger; 
Dark ways of life shall not divide us longer. 

Sot doubt, nor danger, sweet. 

Therefore I bear 
This winter-tide as bravely as I may, 
Patiently waiting for the bright spring day 

That cometh with thee, dear. 

Tis the May hght 
That crimsons all the C[uiet college gloom; 
May it shine softly in thy sleeping-room — 

And so, dear wife, good-night! 

EDWIN ARNOLD. 



PURE AND TRUE AND TENDER. 



PUEE and true and tender 
My love must be : 
Handsome, tall, and slender 
My love rnai/ be : 
But if the first be his 
VTho loveth me, 
My heart will rest in bliss 
And constancy. 

With manly words and daring 

My love must woo ; 
With polished tones and bearing 

My love may woo; 
But ever dear and sweet 

The words will be 
My lover's lips repeat 

For only me. h . 



From my experience, not one in twenty 
marries the first love ; we build statues of 
snow, and weep to see them melt. 



BEFORE THfi GATE. 



T 



HEY gave the whole long day to idle 
laughter, 
To fitful song and jest, 
To moods of soberness as idle, after, 
And silences, as idle too as the rest. 



But when at last upon their way returning. 

Taciturn, late and loath. 
Through the broad meadow in the sunset 
burning, 
They reached the gate, one fine spell hin- 
j dered both. 

Her heart was troubled wath a subtile anguish 

Such as but women know 
That wait, and lest love speak or speak not, 
languish, 
And what they would, would rather they 
would not so ; 

Till he said, — man-like nothing comprehend- 
ing 
Of all the wondrous guile 
That women won win themselves with, and 
bending 
Eyes of relentless asking on her the while — 

"Ah, if beyond this gate the path united 

Our steps as far as death. 
And I might open it! — " His voice, affrighted 

At his own daring, faltered under his breath. 

Then she — whom both his faith and fear 
enchanted 

Far beyond words to tell. 
Feeling her woman's finest wit had wanted 

The art he had that knew to blunder so well — 

Slyly drew near, a little step, and mocking, 

"Shall we not be too late 
For tea?" she said. "I'm quite worn out 
with walking : 
Yes, thanks, your arm. And will you- 
open the gate?" 

WILLIAM D. HOWELL S. 



A GIRDLE. 



T 



HAT which her slender waist confined 
Shall now my joyful temples bind: 
No monarch but would give his crown 
His arms might do what this has done. 



It was my heaven's extremest sphere. 
The pale that held that lovely deer. 
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love 
Did all within this circle move. 

A narrow compass ! And yet there 
Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair; 
Give me but what this ribband bound; 
Take all the rest the sun goes round. 

EDMUND WALLER. 



THE FATHER'S LAMENT. 



THUS it is our daughters leave us. 
Those we love, and those who love us ; 
Just when they have learned to help us, 
When we are old and lean upon them, 
Comes a youth with flaunting feathers, 
With his flute of reeds, a stranger, 
Wanders piping through the village, 
•Beckons to the fairest maiden. 
And she follows where he leads her. 
Leaving all things for the stranger. 

H. W. LONGFELLOW. 



THE BRIDAL— A PICTURE. 

If LIVE Tvdth eyes, the village sees 
II The Bridal dawning from the trees, 
X I And housewives swarm i' the sun like 
JL bees : 

Love's lovely to the passer-by. 
But they who love are regioned high 
On hills of bliss with heaven nigh. 
The Blessing given, the ring is on. 
And at God's altar radiant run 
The currents of two lives in one I 



FROM the sky the sun, benignant. 
Looked upon them througn the branches, 
Saying to them, "Oh, my children 
Love is sunshine, hate is shallow. 
Life is checkered shade and sunshine; 
Rule by love, O Hiawatha!" 
From the sky the moon looked at them. 
Filled the lodge with mystic splendor, 
Whispered to them, "Oh, my children, 
Day is restless, night is quiet, 
Man imperious, woman feeble : 
Half is mine, although I follow; 
Rule by patience, Laughing Water.'* 

H, H. LONGFELLOW. 



53 



MAIDENHOOD. 



^ 



AIDEX ! with the meek brown eyes, 
In whose orh a shadow lies, 
Like the dusk in evening skies! 



Thou, whose looks outshine the sun, 
Golden tresses wreathed in one, 
As the branded streamlets run. 

Standing, with reluctant feet, 
Where the brook and river meet, 

Womanhood and childhood fleet I 

Gazing with a timid glance 

On the brooklet's swift advance, 

On the river's broad expanse. 

Deep and still, that gliding stream, 
Beautiful to thee must seem, 
As the river of a dream. 

Then, why pause with mdecision, 
When bright angels in the vision 
Beckon thee to fields Elysian ! 

See'st'thou shadows sailing by. 
As the dove with startled eye, 
Sees the falcon's shadow fly ? 

Hearest thou voices on the shore, 
That our ears perceive no more, 
Deafen'd by the cataract's roar? 

thou child of many 2)rayer3 ! 

Life hath quicksands, life hath snares I 

Care and age come unawares I 

Like the swell of some sweet tune, 
Morning rises into noon. 
May glides onward into June. 

Childhood is the bow where slumber'd 
Birds and blossoms many-number'd ; 
Age, that bow with snows encumber'd. 

Gather, then, each flower that grows, 
When the young heart overflows. 
To embalm that tent of snows. 



Bear a life in thy hands: 

Gates of brass cannot withstand 

One touch of that magic wand. 

Bear, through sorrow, wrong and ruth, 
In thy heart the dew of youth. 
On thy lips the smile of truth. 

Oh ! that dew, like balm, shall steal 
Into wounds that cannot heal, 
Even as sleep our eyes doth seal. 

And that smile, like sunshine's dart 
Into many a sunless heart : 
For a smile of God thou art. 

H. W. LONGFELLOW, 



EMILY IS MARRIED. 



IT is wonderful how one young maiden 
freshens up and keeps green the pater- 
nal roof. Old and young seem to have 
an interest in her, so long as she is not 
absolutely disposed of. Emily is married. 
The Admiral still enjoys his pine, but he 
has no Miss Emily to fill ij for him. The 
instrument stands where it stood, but she 
is gone, whose delicate touch could some- 
times for a short minute appease the war- 
ring elements. He has learnt, as ^Marvel 
expresses it, to "make his destiny his 
choice.'' He bears bravely up, but he 
does not come out with his flashes of wild 
wit so thick as formerly. His sea-songs 
seldom escape him. His wife, too, looks 
as if she wanted some younger body to 
scold and set to rights. We all miss a 
junior presence. The youth fulness of the 
house is flown ! 

CHAl LS LAMB. 



54 



TO OUR GIRLS. 



THE pastor of a cliurcli in one of our 
large cities said to me not long ago ; 
^'I have officiated at forty weddings 
since I came here, and in every case, save 
one, I felt that the bride was running an 
awful risk." Young men of bad habits 
and fast tendencies never marry girls of 
their own sort, but demand a wife above 
suspicion. So pure, sweet women, kept 
from the touch of evil through the years 
of their girlhood, give themselves, with 
all their costly dower of womanhood, into 
the keeping of men who, in base associa- 
tions, have learned to undervalue all that 
belongs to them, and then find no time for 
repentance in the sad after years. There 
is but one way out - of this that I can see, 
and that is for you — the young women of 
the country — to require in association and 
marriage, purity for purity, sobriety for 
sobriety, and honor for honor. There is 
no reason why the young men of this 
Christian land should not be just as vir- 
tuous as its young women, and if the loss 
of your society and love be the price they 
are forced to pay for vice, they will not 
pay it. I admit with sadness that not all 
of our young women are capable of this 
high standard for themselves or others ; 
too often from the hand of reckless beauty 
has the temptation to drink come to men; 
but I believe there are enough of earnest, 
thoughtful girls in the society of our 
country to work wonders in the temper- 
ance reform, if fully aroused. Dear girls, 
will you help us in the name of Christ ? 
Will you, first of all, be so true to your- 
selves and God, so pure in your inner and 
outer life, that you shall have a right to 
ask that the young men with whom you 
associate, and especially those you marry, 
shall be the same? The awful gulf of 



dishonor is close beside your feety and in 
it fathers, brothers, lovers and sons are 
going down. Will you not help us in 
our great work? 



MARY F. L ATH ROP, 



ADVICE TO A YOUNG MAN. 



THE following admirable letter, ad- 
dressed by Mr. Carlyle in 1843 to a 
young man who had written to him 
desiring his advice as to a proper choice 
of reading, and, it would appear also, as to 
his conduct in general, is taken from its 
hiding place in an old Scottish newspaper 
of a quarter of a century ago : 

*^ Dear Sir — Some time ago your let- 
ter was delivered me ; I take literally the 
first free half hour I have had since to 
write you a word of answer. 

"It would give me true satisfaction 
could any advice of mine continue to for- 
ward you in your honorable course of 
self-improvement, but a long experience 
has taught me that advice can profit but 
little ; that there is a good reason why 
advice is so seldom followed; this reason 
namely, that it so seldom, and can almost 
never be, rightly given. No man knows 
the state of another; it is always to some 
more or less imaginary man that the wisest 
and most honest adviser is speaking. 

"As to the books which you — whom I 
know so little of — should read, there is 
hardly anything definite that can be said. 
For one thing, you may be strenuously 
advised to keep reading. Any good book, 
any book that is wiser than yourself, will 
teach you something — a great many 
things, indirectly and directly, if your 
mind be open to learn. This old counsel 
of Johnson's is also good, and universally 
applicable: — ^Rcad the book you do hon- 



55 



ADVICE TO A YOUNG MAN. 



estly feel a wish and curiosity to read/ 
The very wish and curiosity indicates that 
you, then and tliere, are the person likely 
to get good of it. ^Our wishes are pre- 
sentiments of our capabilities;' that is a 
noble saying, of deep encouragement to 
all true men ; applicable to our wishes 
and efforts in regard to reading as to other 
things. Among all the objects that look 
wonderful or beautiful to you, follow with 
fresh hope the one which looks wonder- 
fullest, beautifullest. You will gradually 
find, by various trials (which trials see 
that you make honest, manful ones, not 
silly, short, fitful ones), what is for you the 
wonderfullest, beautifullest — what \^yoxir 
true element and province, and be able to 
profit by that. True desire, the monition of 
nature, is much to be attended to. But 
here also, you are to discriminate carefully 
between //ue desire and false. The medical 
men tell us we should eat what we truly 
have an appetite for, but what we only 
falsely have an appetite for we should 
resolutely avoid. It is very true; and 
flimsy, desultory readers, who fly from 
foolish book to foolish book, and get good 
of none, and mischief of all — are not these 
as foolish, unhealthy eaters, who mistake 
their superficial false desire after spiceries 
and confectlonaries for their real ajDpetlte, 
of which even they are not destitute, 
though it lies far deeper, after solid nutri- 
tive food? ^'ith these illustrations, I 
will recommend Johnson's advice to you. 
^'Another thing, and only one other, I 
will say. All books are properly the 
record of the history of past men — what 
actions past men did; the summary of all 
books whatsoever lies there. It is on this 
ground that" the class of books specifically 
named history can be safely recommended 
as the basis of all study of books — the 
preliminary to all right and full under- 
standing of anything we can expect to 



find in books. Past history, and especially 

the past history of one's own native coun- 
try, everybody may be advised to begin 
with that. Let him study that faithfully 
innumerable inquiries will branch out 
from it ; he has a broad-beaten highway, 
from which all the country is more or less 
visible ; there travelling, let him choose 
where he will dwell. 

^^Xeither let mistakes and wrong direc- 
tions — of which evety man, in his studies 
and elsewhere, falls into many — discour- 
age you. There is precious instruction to 
be got by finding that we are wrong. Let 
a man try faithfully, manfully, to be right, 
he will grow daily more and more right. 
It is, at bottom, the condition which all 
men have to cultivate themselves. Our 
very walking is an incessant falling — a 
falling and a catching of ourselves before 
we come actually to the pavement! — It is 
emblematic of all things a man does. 

^^ In conclusion, I Avill remind you that 
it is not books alone, or by books chiefly, 
that a man becomes in all points a man. 
Study to do faithfully whatsoever thing 
in your actual situation, there and now, 
you find either expressly or tacitly laid to 
your charge ; that is your post ; stand in 
it like a true soldier. Silently devour 
the many chagrins of it, as all human 
situations have many ; and see you aim 
not to quit it without doing all that it, at 
least, required of you. A man perfects 
himself by work much more than by 
reading. They are a growing kind of 
men that can wisely combine the two 
things — wisely, valiantly, can do what is 
laid to their hand in their jDresent sphere, 
aud prepare themselves withal fur doing 
other wider things, if such lie before 
them. 

" AVith many good wishes and encour- 
agements, I remain yours sincerely, 

" Thomas Carlyle." 



56 



PLATONIC. 



1HAD sworn to be a bachelor, she had sworn to be a maid, 
For we quite agreed in doubting whether matrimony paid; 
Besides we had our higher loves, fair science ruled my heart, 
And she said her young affections were all wound up in art 

So we laughed at those wise men, who say, that friendship cannot live 
'Twixt man and woman, unless each has something more to give; 
We would be friends, and friends as true as e'er were man and man— 
I^d be a second David, and she Miss Jonathan. 

We scorned all sentimental trash — vows, kisses, tears and sighs; 
High friendship, such as ours, might well such childish arts despise; 
We liked each other, that was all, quite all there was to say. 
So we just shook hands upon it, in a business sort of way. 

We shared our secrets and our joys, together hoped and feared, 
With common purpose sought the goal that young Ambition reared; 
We dreamed together of the days, the dream-bright days to come ; 
We were strictly confidential, and we called each other " chum.'' 

And many a day we wandered together o'er the hills, 
I seeking bugs and butterflies, and she the ruined mills 
And rustic bridges and the like, that picture-makers prize 
To run in with their waterfalls, and groves, and summer skies. 

And many a quiet evening, in hours of silent ease. 

We floated down the river, or strolled beueath the trees, 

And talked in long gradation, from the poets to the weather, 

While the western skies and my cigar burned slowly out together. 

Yet through it all no whispered word, no tell-tale glance or sigh, 
Told aught of warmer sentiment than friendly sympathy — 
We talked of love as coolly as we talked of Nebulae, 
And thought no more of being one than we did of being three, 

iti ff. * 4e * * * * n 

"Well, good-bye, chum!" I took her hand, for the time had come to go-^ 

My going meant our parting, when to meet we did not know; 

I had lingered long, and said farewell with a very heavy heart; 

For although we were but friends, 'tis hard for honest friends to part 

"Good-bye, old fellow ! don't forget your friends beyond the sea, 
And some day, when youVe lots of time, drop a line or two to me.'' 
The words came lightly, gaily, but a great sob, just behind. 
Welled upward with a story of quite a different kind. 

And then she raised her eyes to mine — great liquid eyes of blue, 
Filled to the brim, and running o'er, like violet cups of dew; 
Cue long, long glauce, and then I did, what I never did before — 
Pei'haps the tears meant friendship, but I'm sure the kiss meant more. 

WILLIAM B. TERRETT. 

57 



COME INTO THE GARDEN, MAUD 



GOME into the garden, Maud, 
For the black bat, night, has flown ! 
Come into the garden, Maud, 
I am here at the gate alone. 
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, 
And the musk of the rose is blown. 

For a breeze of morning moves, 
And the planet of Love is on high, 

Beginning to faint in the light that she loves, 
On a bed of daffodil sky, — 

To faint in the light of the sun she loves, 

To faint in his light, and to die. 

All night have the roses heard 

The flute, violin, bassoon ; 
All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd 

To the dancers dancing in tune, — 
Till a silence fell with the waking bird, 

And a hush with the setting moon. 

I said to the lily, "There is but one 

With whom she has heart to be gay. 
When will the dancers leave her alone? 

She is weary of dance and play." 
Now half to the setting moon are gone, 

And half to the rising day ; 
Low on the sand and loud on the stone 

The last wheel echoes away. 

I said to the rose, " The brief night goes 

In babble and revel and wine. 
O young lord-lover, what sighs are those 

For one that will never be thine ? 
But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose, 

"For ever and ever mine! " 

And the soul of the rose went into my blood, 
As the music clash'd in the hall : 

And long by the garden lake I stood. 
For I heard your rivulets fall 

From the lake to the meadow and on to the 
wood, 
Our wood, that is dearer than all ; 

From the meadow your walks have left so 
sweet 

That Avhenever a March wind sighs, 
He sets the jewel-print of your feet 

In violets blue as your eyes, 
To the woody hollows in which we meet, 

And tbe valleys of Paradise. 

The slender acacia would not shake 
One long milk-bloom on the tree ; 



The wnite lake-blossom fell into the lake, 
As the pimpernel dozed on the lea ; 

But the rose was awake all night for your saka 
Knowing your promise to me ; 

The lilies and roses were all awake. 
They sigh'd for the dawn and thee. 

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, 
Come hither, the dances are done, 

In gloss of satin and glimmer oi pearls. 
Queen lily and rose in one ; 

Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, 
To the flowers, and be their sun. 

There has fallen a splendid tear 

From the passion-flower at the gate. 
She is coming, my dove, my dear ; 

She is coming, my life, my fate ! 
The red rose cries, " She is near, she is near;" 

And the white rose weeps, "She is late;" 
The larkspur listens, " I hear, I hear; " 

And the lily whispers, "I wait." 

She is coming, my own, my sweet ! 

Were it ever so airy a tread. 
My heart would hear her and beat. 

Were it earth in an earthy bed ; 
My dust would hear her and beat. 

Had I lain for a century dead; 
Would startle and tremble under her feet. 

And blossom in purple and red. 

ALFRED TENNYSON. 



PROPOSAL. 

THE violet loves a sunny bank, 
The cowslip loves the lea, 
The scarlet-creeper loves the elm, 
. But I love — thee. 

The sunshine kisses mount and vale, 

The stars they kiss the sea. 
The w^est wdnds kiss the clover bloom, 

But I kiss — thee. 

The oriole weds his mottled mate. 

The lily's bride of the bee ; 
Heaven's marriage-ring is round the 
earth ; 

Shall I wed thee? 

BAYARD TAYLOR, 



58 



LOVE. 

THERE is a fragrant blossom, that maketh glad the garden of the heart ; 
Its roots lieth deep ; it is delicate, yet lasting, as the lilac crocus of autumn ; 
Loveliness and thought are the dews that water it morn and even; 
Memory and absence cherish it, as the balmy breathings of the south. 
Its sun is the brightness of affection, and it bloometh in the border of Hope.' 
Its companions are gentle flowers, and the briar withereth by its side. 
I saw it budding in beauty ; I felt the magic of its smile ; 
The violet rejoiced beneath it, the rose stooped down and kissed it; 
And I thought some cherub had planted there a truant flower of Eden, 
As a bird bringeth foreign seeds, that they may flourish Im a kindly soiL 
I saw, and asked not its name. I knew no language was so wealthy, 
Though every heart of every clime findeth its echo within. 

Love, — what a volume in a word, an ocean in a tear, 

A seventh heaven in a glance, a whirlwind in a sigh, 

The lightning in a touch, a millennium in a moment. 

What concentrated joy, or woe, in blest or blighted Love ! 

For it is that native poetry springing up indigenous in Mind, 

The heart's own country music thrilling all its chords, 

The story without an end that angels throng to hear, 

The words, the king of words, carved on Jehovah's heart ! 

Go, call thou snake-eyed malice mercy, call envy honest praise, 

Count selfish craft for wisdom, and coward treachery for prudence ; 

Do homage for blaspheming unbelief as to bold and free philosophy, 

And estimate the recklessness of license as the right attribute of liberty, — 

But with the world, thou friend and scholar, stain not this pure name, 

Nor suffer the majesty of Love to be likened to the meanness of desire ; 

For Love is no more such, than seraphs' hymns are discord ; 

And such is no 'more Love than Etna's breath is summer. 

Love is a sweet idolatry, enslaving all the soul, 

A mighty spiritual force, warring with the dullness of matter. 

An angel mind breathed into a mortal, though fallen, yet how beautiful ! 

All the devotion of the heart in all its depth and grandeur. 

Behold that pale geranium, pent within the cottage window, 

How yearningly it stretcheth to the light its sickly long-stalked leaves ; 

How it straineth upward to the sun, coveting his sweet influence ; 

How real a living sacrifice to the god of all its worship ! 

Such is the soul that loveth, and so the rose-tree of aflection 

Bendeth its every leaf to look on those dear eyes : 

Its every gushing petal basketh in their light ; 

And all its gladness, all its life, is lianging on tlieir love. 

If the love of .the heart is blighted it buddeth not again: 

If that pleasant song is forp^otton, it is to be learnt no more ; 

Yet often will thought look back, and weep over early afiection ; 

And the dim notes of that pleasant song will be heard as a reproachful spirit, 

Moaning in ^Eolian stranis over the desert of tlie heart. 

Where the hot siroccos of the world have wither'd its own oasis. 

M. F. TUP P ER. 

69 



TWO OF THEM 



TN the farm-house porch the farmer sat, 
I "With his daughter having a cosy chat, 
She was his only child, and he 
Thought her as fair as a girl could he. 
A wee hit jealous the old man grew. 
If he fancied any might come to woo 
His one pet lamb, and her loving care 
He wished with nobody else to share. 



To help the farmer to understand (?) 
"H'm," said the farmer: "yes, I see; 
It is two for yourself and one for me." 
But Bessie said, " There can be but one 
For me and my heart till life is done." 



DIVIDED. 



" There should be two of yon, child," said 

he; 
"There should be two to welcome me 
When I come home from the field at night : 
Two would make the old homestead 

bright. 
There's neighbor Grey with his children 

four 
To be glad together. Had I one more, 
A proud old father I'd be, my dear, 
With two good children to greet me here." 

Down by the gate 'neath the old elm tree 
Donald waited alone; and she 
For whom he waited his love-call heard 
And on either cheek the blushes stirred. 
"Father," she said, and knelt her down. 
And kissed the hand that was old and 

brown — 
"Father, there may be two, if you will, 
And I — your only daughter stiU. 

'' Two to welcome you home at night ; 
Two to nmke the old homestead bright; 
I — and somebody else." "I see," 
Said the farmer, "and whom may 'some- 
body' be?" 
Oh, the dimples in Bessie's cheek. 
That played with the blushes at hide-and- 
seek! 
Away from his gaze she turned her head, 
"One of neighbor Grey's children," she 
said. 

"H'm !" said the farmer; "make it plain; 
Is it Susan, Alice, or Mary Jane ?" 
Another kiss on the aged hand, 



I KNOW the dream is over, 
I know you can not be 
In all the time to come the same 
That you have been to me ; 
The color still is in the cheek, 

The lustre in the eye, — 
But ah ! we two have parted hands — 
Good-bye ! 

Not that I love you less, 

For, oh ! my heart is sore, — 
Not that the lips that breathe your nam« 

Are less fond than of yore ; 
But the unresting feet of time 

Have traveled on so fast ! 
And soul from soul has grown away 
At last. 

I think I just stood still — 

For I had found my all — 
But your rich life swept ever on 

Beyond my weak recall ; 
And now, although the voice rings sweet, 

And clear the dear eyes shine, 
I know no part of all their wealth 
Is mine. 

AYhat bridge can sad Love build 

Across this gulf of Change, 
Who needs must work with broken hopes 

And fancies new and strange? 
Alas, it is too late, — 

The light fades down the sky, 
The hands slip slowly each from each — 
Good-bye ! 

BARTON GREY. 



60 



SPINNING-WHEEL SONG. 



iniELLOW the moonlight to shiue is beginning; 
lyi Close by the window young Eileen is spinning; 

I Bent o'er the fire, her blind grandmother, sitting, 
Is croauing and moaning, and drowsily knitting, — 
"Eileen, aehora, I hear some one tapping.'' 
*''Tis the ivy, dear mother, against the glass flapping/' 
" Eileen, I surely hear somebody sighing." 
*' 'Tis the sound, mother dear, of the summer wind dying." 

Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring. 

Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring^; 

Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing. 

Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing. 

" What's that noise that I hear at the window, I wonder ?" 
*' 'Tis the little birds chirping the holly-bush under." 
" AVhat makes you be shoving and moving your stool on, 
And singing all wrong that old song of ^The Coolun !'^" 
There's a form at the casement — the form of her true love — - 
And he whispers, with face bent, *^I'm waiting for you, love; 
Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly, 
AYe'U rove in the grove while the moon's shining brightly." 

Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring, 

Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring; 

Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing. 

Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing. 

The maid shakes her head, on her lip lays her fingers. 
Steals up from her seat — longs to go, and yet lingers; 
A frightened glance turns to her drowsy grandmother, 
Puts one foot on the stool, spins the wheel with the other. 
Lazily, easily, swings now the wheel round ; 
Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel's sound ; 
Noiseless and light to the lattice above her 
The maid steps, — then leaps to the arms of her lover. 

Slower, and slower, and slower the wheel swings; 

Lower, and lower, and lower the reel rings. 

Ere the reel and the wheel stopped their ringing and rubbing, 

Thro' the grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving. 

JOHN FRANCIS WALLER. 



A 



YOUTH. 

CHEERFUL sweetness in his looks he has, 

And innocence unartful in his face; 

A modest blush he wears, not furnied ])y art. 

Free from deceit his eye, and full as free his heart. 

CONGRETK, 

61 



ROSADER'S SONETTO, 



ROSADER'S SONETTO. 



T 



UBN I my looks unto the skies, 
Love with his arrows wounds mine 



eyes; 
If so I look upon the ground, 
Love then in every flower is found; 
Search I the shade to flee my pain, 
Love meets me in the shades again ; 
Want I to walk in secret grove, 
E'en there I meet with sacred love; 
If so I bathe me in the spring, 
E'en on the brink I hear him sing; 
If so I meditate alone. 
He will be partner of my moan ; 
If so I mourn, he weeps with me. 
And where I am there. will he be; 
When as I talk of Rosalind, 
The god from coyness waxeth kind, 
And seems in self-same frame to fly, 
Because he loves as well as I. 
Sweet Rosalind, for pity rue, 
For why, than love I am more true. 
He, if he speed, will quickly fly, 
But in thy love I live and die. 



THOMAS LODGE. 



FROM 



THE MERCHANT OF 
VENICE." 



YOU see ine, Lord Bassanio, where I stand, 
Such ai I am : thougli for myself alone 
I would not be ambitious in my wish, 
To wish myself much better; yet, for you 
I would be trebled twenty times myself, 
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand 

times more rich, 
That only to stand high in your account, 
I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends, 
Exceed account: but the full sum of me 
Is sum of nothing ; which, to term in gross. 
Is an unlessoned girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd: 
Happy in this, she is not yet so old 
But she may learn ; happier than this, 
She is not bred so dull but she can learn; 
Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit 
Conmnts itself to yours to be directed, 



As from her lord, her governor, her king. 
Myself and what is mine to you and yours 
Is now converted : but now I was the lord 
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants. 
Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now. 
This house, these servants, and this same myseli 
Are yours, my lord. 

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 

A STOLEN KISS. 



IT I OW gentle sleep hath closed up those eyes 
|\| Which, waking, kept my boldest 
I jL thoughts in awe ; 

^ And free access unto that sweet lip lies. 

From whence I long the rosy breath to draw. 
Methinks no wrong it were if I should steal 

From those melting rubies one poor kiss ; 
Kone sees the theft that would the theft reveal. 

Nor rob I her of aught what she can miss : 
Nay, should I twenty kisses take away. 

There would be little sign I would do so; 
Why, then, should I this robbery delay ? 

Oh, she may wake, and therewith angry 
grow! 
Well, it she do, I'll back restore that one. 
And twenty hundred thousand more for loan. 

GEORGE WITHER. 



\ 



GO, LOVELY ROSE. 



O, lovely rose ! 
Tell her that wastes her time and me, 

That now she knows 
Wlien I resemble her to thee, 
How sweet and fair she seems to be. 



"Tell her that's young, 
And shuns to have her graces spied, 

That hadst thou sprung 

In deserts, where no men abide, 
Thou must have uncommended died. 

"Small is the worth 
Of beauty from the light retired : 

Bid her come forth, 
Suffer herself to be desired. 
And not blush so to be admired. 

"Then die! that she 
The common fate of all things rare 

May read in thee, 

How small a part of time they share 
That are so wondrous sweet and fair." 

EDMUND WALLER, 



62 



ZARA'S EAR-RINGS. 



WITY ear-rings ! my ear-riogs ! they've dropped into the well, 
lYI And what to say to Muca, I cannot, cannot tell — 

I 'Twas thus Granada's fountain by, spoke Albuharez' daughter — 
The well is deep — far down they lie, beneath the cold blue water; 
To me did Muca give them when be spake his sad farewell, 
And what to say when he comes back, alas ! I cannot tell. 

My ear-rings ! my ear-rings ! — they were pearls in silver set, 
That, when my Moor was far away, I ne'er should him forget; 
That I ne'er to other tongues should list, nor smile on other's tale, 
But remember he my lips had kiss'd, pure as those ear-rings pale. 
When he comes back, and hears that I have dropp'd them in the well, 
Oh, what will Muca think of me ? — I cannot, cannot tell ! . 

My ear-rings ! my ear-rings ! — he'll say they should have been, 
Not of pearl and of silver, but of gold and glitering sheen, 
Of jasper and of onyx, and of diamond shining clear, 
Changing to the changing light, with radiance insincere; 
That changeful mind unchanging gems are not befitting well, 
Thus will he think — and what to say, alas ! I cannot tell. 

He'll think when I to market went I loiter'd by the way ; 
He'll think a willing ear I lent to all, the lads might say; 
He'll think some other lover's hand among my tresses noosed, 
From the ears where he had placed them my rings of pearl unloosed j 
He'll think when I was sporting so beside this marble well 
My pearls fell in — and what to say, alas ! I cannot tell. 

He'll say I am a woman, and we are all the same ; 
He'll say I loved when he was here to whisper of his flame — 
But when he went to Tunis, my virgin troth had broken. 
And thought no more of Muca, and cared not for his token. 
My ear-rings ! ray ear-rings ! O luckless, luckless well, — 
For what to say to Muca — alas ! I cannot tell. 

I'll tell the truth to Muca — and I hope he will believe — 
That I thought of him at morning and thought of him at eve; 
That, musing, on my lover, when down the sun was gone. 
His ear-rings in my hand I held, by the fountain all alone; 
And that my mind was o'er the sea, when from my hand they fell, 
And that deep his love lies in my heart, aa they lie in the well. 

(From the Spanish.) John gibson lock hart. 

63 



LOVE. 



K 



LL thoughts, all passions, all delights, 
Whatever stirs this mortal frame. 
All are but ministers of Love, 
And feed his sacred flame. 



Oft in my waking dreams do I 
Live o'er again that happy hour, 

When midway on the mount, I lay. 
Beside the ruin'd tower. 

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene. 
Had blended with the lights of eve ; 

And she was there, my hope, my joy, 
My own dear Genevieve ! 

She leant against the armed man. 
The statue of the armed knight ; 

She stood and listened to my lay, 
Amid the lingering light. 

Few sorrows hath she of her own 
My hope, my joy ! my Genevieve ! 

She loves me best, whene'er I sing 
The songs that make her grieve. 

I play'd a soft and doleful air, . 

I sang an old and moving story — 
An old rude song, that suited well 

That ruin wild and hoary. 

She listen'd with a flitting blush, 

With downcast eyes and modest grace; 

For well she knew, I could not choose 
But gaze upon her face. 

I told her of the Knight that wore 
Upon his shield a burning brand ; 

And that for ten long years he woo'd 
The Lady of the Land. 

He told her how he pined ; and ah ! 

The deep, the low, the pleading tone 
With which I sang another's love. 

Interpreted my own. 



She listen'd with a flitting blush. 

With downcast eyes, and modest grace ; 

And she forgave me, that I gazed 
Too fondly on her face. 

But when I told the cruel scorn 

That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, 

And that he cross'd the mountain-woods, 
Nor rested day nor night; 

That sometimes from the savage den. 
And sometimes from the darksome shade, 

And sometimes starting up at once 
In green and sunny glade. 

There came and look'd him in the face 
An angel beautiful and bright; 

And that he knew it was a Fiend, 
This miserable Knight ! 

And that, unknowing what he did. 
He leap'd amid a murderous band. 

And saved from outrage worse than death 
The Lady of the Land ! 

And now she wept, and clasp'd his knees; 

And how she tended him in vain — 
And ever strove to expiate 

The scorn that crazed his brain. 

And that she nursed him in a cave ; 

And how his madness went away, 
When on the yellow forest-leaves 

A dying man he lay. 

I 
His dying words — but when I reach'd 

The tenderest strain of all the ditty, 
My faltering voice and pausing harp 

Disturb'd her soul with pity ! 

All impulses of soul and sense 

Had thrill'd my guileless Genevieve; 

The music, and the doleful tale, 
The rich and balmy eye : 



64 




KEVKIM 



LOVE, 



And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, 
An undistinguishable throng, 

And gentle wishes long subdued, 
Subdued and cherished long ! 

She wept with pity and delight. 

She blushed with love and virgin-shame; 

And like the murmur of a dream, 
I heard her breathe my name. 

Her bosom heaved — she stepp'd aside, 
As conscious of my look she stepped — 

Then suddenly, with timorous eye 
She fled to me and wept. 

She half enclosed with her arms. 

She press'd me with a meek embrace ; 

And bending back her head, looked up. 
And gazed upon my face. 

*Twas partly love, and partly fear. 
And partly 'twas a bashful art. 

That I might rather feel than see, 
The swelling of her heart. 

l calmM her fears, and she was calm. 
And told her love with virgin pride, 

And so I won my Genevieve, 
My br\^ht and beauteous Bride. 

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 



MARY MORISON. 



OMARY, at thy window be ! 
It is the wished, the trysted hour, 
Those smiles and glances let me see 
That make the miser's treasure poor: 
How blithely wad I bide the stoure, 

A weary slave frae sun to sun. 
Could I the rich reward secure. 
The lovely Mary Morison ! 

Y^'estreen, when to the trembling string. 

The dance gaed through the lighted ha'. 
To thee my fancy took its wing — • 

I sat, but neither heard nor saw — 
Though this was fair, and that was braw, 

And you the toast of a' the town, 
I sighed, and said amang them a', 

" Ye are na Mary Morison." 

O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace, 

AYha for thy sake wad gladly dee ? 
Or canst thou break that heart of his, 

Whase only fault is loving thee? 
If love for love thou wilt na gie. 

At least be pity to me shown ; 
A thought ungentle canna be 

The thought o' Mary Morison. 

ROBERT BURNS. 



COME, REST IN THIS BOSOM. 



Cv)ME, rest in this bosom, my own stricken dear. 
Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here; 
Here still is the smile that no cloud can overcast, 
And a heart and hand all thy own to the last. 

Oh, whafc was love made for, if 'tis not the same 

Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame? 

I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart, 

I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art. 

Thou hast called me thy angel in moments of bliss. 
And thy angel I'll be 'mid the horrors of this. 
Through the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue, 
And shield thee, and save thee, — or perish there too ! 

THOMAS MOORE. 

5b 65 



COURTSHIP. 



DAISY flashed into my room this morn- 
ing, and exclaimed : ^^Only acquain- 
ted six weeks and married to-mor- 
row ! The idea. Well, if I can't have a 
longer courtship than that, I'll never 
marry ; that's all !" 

" What is courtship, Daisy ?" 

'^Why," and the pretty maiden hesi- 
tated before she answered my abrupt 
question ; " it's having a young man come 
to see you, and bring a carriage to give 
you a ride, and take you to concerts and 
lectures, and being engaged with a hand- 
some ring, and then having a grand wed- 
ding, such as Mary has no time for ;" and 
the thoughtless young creature danced 
away to escape one of my talks. So, as 
Daisy has left me, I shall have to give 
others the benefit of my thoughts. 

I am no lover of hasty marriages, but I 
think Mary's short courtship will be quite 
as apt to end pleasantly as the longer one 
Daisy is planning for. She gives no 
thought to learning the disposition of the 
knight who will one day seek her hand. 
I do not think girls give this subject the 
thought they should. Think over your 
girl acquaintances, and select one who, 
when you first met her, appeared pleasant 
and gentle, but later proved to have 
qualities in exact opposition to these. If 
you met her at school, you quite likely 
asked to share seats or rooms ; but after a 
little, when her real self became known, 
how desirous you were of a change! 
Suppose the choice you made was one by 
which you must abide as long as you two 
attended the same school, and neither of 
you could leave it before your education 
was finished without incurring lasting 
disgrace. Would not your school life 
have been one of misery ? 

And now give a thought to the much 
closer relation of the wedded pair. To 



them there comes no semi-annual vacation 
or separation ; they are expected to spend 
their lives together, to be each the well- 
spring of delight for the other, not merely 
for a few months, or half a score of years, 
but " so long as ye both shall live." Just 
think the matter over. Suppose you 
should marry, and find after a little that 
you were mistaken in your husband's 
character — that he was not so pleasant as 
he seemed — that the little sins he promised 
to give up were still persisted in ; in short, 
that your natures did not assimilate as you 
expected they would do, and life with him 
was a constant trial. What could you 
do ? Nothing whatever, except keep as 
far as possible your vow to be a true, 
faithful, loving wife. It would be too 
hard to spend thirty, forty or perhaps 
fifty years as a constant companion of a 
detested husband. 

Then picture your union with a man 
whose presence was always a source of 
delight, whose absence ever made a void 
in your life; whose return ^^^s welcomed 
by an involuntary smile and a quicker 
beating of the pulse, whose voice made 
music in your home and your heart. 
Would you then grieve, think you, that 
yours was union for life, or would it be a 
task to be true, faithful and lov ng ? 
These are no fancy sketches, girls. Home 
is a place of happiness or torment. 

Now I think the object of courtship is 
to learn if the natural likes and dislikes, 
tastes, habits, pleasures and desires of the 
two young people are enough alike for 
them to be pleasant companions as long 
as they live. To ascertain this, all young 
persons of either sex should bo truly 
themselves in all their intercourse with each 
other, for real companionship is that which 
each desires, and if courtship is mere 
acting, how can either make a satisfactory 



^e 



COURTSHIP, 



decision? AVithout this companionship, 
wedded life is a mockery and a delusion ; 
with it one gets a foretaste of eternal 
bliss. 

If you meet one who likes that which 
you like, and' abhors that which you ab- 
hor, not merely because you like or dis- 
like it, but because his natural taste 
chooses or rejects the same things as does 
your own, not in minutiae, perhaps, but in 
all essential points, you have very likely 
been found by your true knight. But be 
sure before you give him your hand in 
marriage that you love him — that you 
care for Am, and not for his surroundings 
only — that your affection is based on 
something more enduring than good fea- 
tures, shining hair or fine figure. Age 
will alter these, and their beauty is lost ; 
but true love only grows stronger with 
the change. 

Still more foolish than this is the one 
who marries for money or position, the 
most fleeting things of earth, that at the 
slightest adverse wind take to themselves 
wings and fly away. Neither is she wise 
who marries because it is expedient. A 
life of toil alone is easier than the same 
life with the husband she detests. Nor is 
it best to marry as did Betsy Bobbet, be- 
cause "Mrs.'' would look better than 
*^Miss" on her tombstone. 

Dear girls, marry for none of these 
things. 



D 



SONG. 

AY, in melting purple dying, 

Blossoms all around me sighing, 
Fragrance, from the lilies straying, 
Zephyr, with my ringlets i)laying, 
Ye but waken my distress : 
I am sick of loneliness. 

Thou to whom I love to hearken 
Come, ere night around me darken ; 



Though thy softness but deceive me, 
Say, thou'rt true, and I'll believe thee; 

Veil, if ill, thy soul's intent ! 

Let me think it innocent ! 

Save thy toiling, spare thy treasure ; 
All I ask is friendship's pleasure : 
Let the shining ore lie darkling. 
Bring no gem in lustre sparkling; 
Gifts and gold are naught to mcf 
I would only look on thee ! 

Tell to thee the high-wrought feeUrs'. 

Ecstasy but in revealing ; 

Paint to thee the deep sensation, 

Eapture in participation, 

Yet but torture, if comprest 
In a lone unfriended breast. 

Absent still ? Ah ! come and blesw me I 
Let these eyes again caress thee ; 
Once, in caution, I could fly thee : 
Now, I nothing could deny thee : 
In a look if death there be, 
Come and I will gaze on theef 

MARIA BROOKS, 

LOVE. 

WHO can hide fire? If't be uncovered, 
light; 
If covered, smoke betrays it to the 
sight : 
Love is that fire, which still some sign aff'ords; 
If hid, they are sighs; if open, they are words. 

WILLM. CARTWRIGHT. 

I TELL thee. Love is I^ature's second sun, 
Causing a Spring of virtues where he 
shines ; 
And as without the sun, the world's 
great eye. 
All colors, beauties both of Art and Nature. 
Are given in vain to men ; so, without Love, 
All beauties bred in Women are in Vain, 
All virtues bred in men lie buried ; 
For Love informs them as the sun doth colors, 

GEORGE CHAPMAN. 







LADY, trust the generous boy. 
His smiles are full of light and joy, 
And e'en his most envenomed dart 
Is better than a vacant heart. 

L, M. CHILD. 



67 



GRADUATED. 



IT THOUSAND eyes beheld the class- 
f\ mates range 

I Their semi-circles round the rector's 

chair, 
While he, with stately-sounding old-world 

words, 
Gives parchment honors uhere. 

A thousand shining eyes ! but none descry 
The shape that's clearest to my dim- 
ming sight, 

A shadow form that in yon goodly throng 
Moveth as with a right. 

A form as fair as any of the rest, 

Pressing, like them, with eager tread of 
youth — 

A face that not the brightest may outshine 
For lovingness or truth ! 

See how 'tis moved with feelings of the 
hour ! 
With boyish pleasure, yet with manly 
pain ! 
Pleased with the prize, yet ready to prefer 
The long, sweet strife again. 



With which thy. faithful spirit laid aside 
The life it loved of old? 

Not all the learning of the wise of earth 
Could find an answer. Wearily, mine 
eye 

Turns from the smiling company to seek 
Outside the blue June sky. 

Through open windows of the crowded 
church, 
In still significance, it looketh down, 
And tossing elm-boughs hush themselves 
to catch 
The word it might make known. 

The buzz within, the rector's stately speech 
Grow far-ofi* to mine ear, and die away. 

I find again the silence of thy strange, 
Sad graduation day ; 

I hear again thy Master's simple words, 

So low, so sweet, conferring thy degree 
'' Of such my kingdom is ; let none forbid 



His coming unto me." 



M. E. BENNETT. 



Ah, tear-dimmed eyes ! it is in vain you try, 
With the self-cheating spirit to restore 

That shape unto the place that knew it 
once. 
But knows it now no more. 

He is not here, the earnest lad who threw 
Himself so lovingly into the round 

Of college life, the fullest that as yet 
His brief young days had found. 

xie is not here. Far other prizes now 
May beckon him. Oh, dear one, long 
away. 
What high companionships content thee 
for 
Thine absence here to-day ? 

What happy schools far off, of love and joy 
Have with their charms the gentle grief 
consoled 



A KING'S WOOING. 

CANST thou love me, Kate ? A good 
leg will fall; a straight back will 
stoop; a black beard will turn white; 
a curled pate will grow bald ; a fair face 
will wither ; a full eye will wax hollow ; 
but a good hearty Kate, is the sun and 
moon, or rather the sun and not the 
moon; for it shines bright and never 
changes, but keeps its course truly. If 
thou wouldst have such a one, have me. 
If thou canst love me for this, take mc ; 
if not, to say to thee, that I shall die, is 
true ; but, for thy love, by the Lord, no ; 
yet I love thee too. 

KING HENRY V. — Act V., Scene U. 



G8 



MISS EDITH HELPS THINGS ALONG. 

/ / WllY sister '11 be down in a minute, and says you're to wait if you please; 
And says I might stay till she came, if I'd promise her never to tease, 
Nor speak till you spoke to me first. But that's nonsense; for how would 
you know 

What she told me to say if I didn't? Don't you really and truly think so? 



1 



''And then you'd feel strange here alone. And you wouldn't know just where to sit; 

For that chair isn't strong on its legs, and we never use it a bit : 

We keep it to match with the sofa; but Jack says it would be like you 

To flop yourself right down upon it, and knock out the very last screw. 

" Suppose you tr^^ ! I won't tell. You're afraid to ! Oh ! you're afraid they would 

think it was mean ! 
Well, then, there's the album : that's pretty if you're sure that your fingers are clean, 
For sister says sometimes I daub it ; but she only says that when she's cross. 
There's her picture. You know it ? It's like her, but she ain't as good-looking, of 

course. 

" This is ME. It's the best of 'em all. Now, tell me, you'd never have thought 
That once I was little as that? It's the only one that could be bought; 
For that was the message to pa from the photograph-man where I sat, — 
That he wouldn't print off any more till he first got his money for that. 

"What? Maybe you're tired of waiting. Why, often she's longer than this. 

There's all her back hair to do up, and all of her front curls to friz. 

But it's nice to be sitting here talking, like grown people, just you and me! 

Do you think you'll be coming here often ? Oh, do ! But don't come like Tom Lee — 

" Tom Lee, her last beau. Why, my goodness ! he used to be here day and night, 
Till the folks thought he'd be her husband ; and Jack says that gave him a fright. 
You won't run away then, as he did ? for you're not a rich man, they say. 
Pa says you're poor as a church-mouse. Now, are you? and how poor are they? 

" Ain't you glad that you met me ? Well, I am ; for I know now your hair isn't red ; 
But what there is left of it's mousy, and not what that naughty Jack said. 
But there ! I must go ; sister's coming ! But I wish I could wait, just to see 
If she ran up to you, and she kissed you in the way she used to kiss Lee." 

BRET HARTE. 

BE ZEALOUS. YOUTH PASTURES IN A VALLEY 

^, , , , ■: — T" , ' OF ITS OWN. 

On, be thou zealous m thy youth 

Fill every day with noble toils, 

Fight for the victories of truth. Youth pastures in a valley of its own : 

And deck thee with her deatliless spoils, The glare of noon, the rains and winds of 

For those whose lives are in retreat, heaven. 

Their valor and ambition flown, Mar not the calm yet virgin of all care; 

In vain the 'larum drum is beat. But ever with sweet joys it buddeth up 

In vain the battle trumpet blown ! The airy halls of life. 

Oriental translation by W. R. Alger. sophocles. 

69 



MY KATE, 



rtHE "U'as not as pretty as Tvomen I know, 

y\ And yet all your best, made of sunshine and snov, 

j Deep to shade, melc to nought, in the long-trodden ways, 

While she's still remembered on wai'm and cold dr.ys : 

My Kate. 

Her air had a meaning, her movement a grace, 
You turned from the fairest to gaze in her face ; 
And -svhen you had once seen her forehead and mouth, 
You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth : 

My Kate. 

Such a blueinner light from her eyelids outbroke, 
You looked at her silence and fancied she spoke ; 
1\^hen she did, so peculiar, yet soft was the tone, 
Though the loudest spoke also you hoard her alone : 

]My Kate. 

I doubt if she said to you much that could act 

As a thought or suggestion ; she did not attract 

In the sense of the brilliant and wise, I infer; 

'Twas her thinking of others made you think of her: 

:\Iy Kate. 

She never found fault with you 5 never imj^lied 
Your wrong by her right ; and yet men at her side, 
Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town 
The children were gladder that pulled at her gown : 

My Kate. 

Xone knelt at her {'c^t as adorers in thrall ; 
They knelt more to God than they used, that was all ; 
If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant. 
But the charm of her presence was felt when she went : 

:My Kate. 

The Aveak and the gentle, the ribald and rude. 
She took as she found them and did them all good; 
It always was so with her — see what you have I 
She has made the grass greener e'en here with her grave : 

:My Kate. 

My dear one ! when thou wert alive with the rest, 
I held thee the sweetest, and loved thee the best; 
And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part, 
As thy smile used to do thyself, my sweetheart? 

:Nry Kate. 

ELIZABETH BARRETT B R O W N I .,' •,». 
7U 



BELIEVE ME, IF ALL THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHARMS. 



BELIEVE ME, IF ALL THOSE EN- 
DEARING YOUNG CHARMS. 

BELIEVE me, if all those endearing young 
charms, 
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day, 
Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet 
in my arms. 
Like fairy gifts fading awa)'". 
Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment 
thou art, 
Let thy loveliness fade as it will, 
A-nd around the dear ruin each wish of my 
heart 
Would entwine itself verdantly still. 

It is not while beauty and youth are thine own, 

And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear. 
That the fervor and faith of a soul can be 
known, 
To which time will but make thee more dear ; 
Ko, the heart that has trul}^ loved never forgets, 

But as truly loves on to the close. 
As the sunflower turns on her god, when he 
sets, 
The same look which she turned when he 
rose. 

THOMAS MOORE. 



THE LOVELINESS OF LOVE. 



1 



T is not beauty I demand, 

A crystal brow, the moon's despair, 
Nor the snow's daughter, a whiio hand, 

Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair : 



Tell me not of your starry eyes. 
Your lips that seem on roses fed. 

Your breasts, where Cupid tumbling lies, 
Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed : — 

A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks 
Like Hebe's in her ruddiest.hours, 

A breath that softer music speaks 
Than summer winds a-wooing flowers. 

These are but gauds : nay what are lips ? 

Coral beneath the ocean stream, 
Whose brink when your adventure slips 

Full oft he perisheth on them. 

And what are cheeks, but ensigns oft 
That wave hot youth to fields of blood? 

Did Helen's breast, though ne'er so soft. 
Do Greece or Ilium any good? 



Eyes can with baleful ardor burn ; 

Poison can breathe, that erst perfumed; 
There's many a white hand holds an urn 

With lovers' hearts to dust consumed. 

For crystal brows there's naught within- 
They are but empty cells for pride; 

He who the siren's hair would win 
Is mostly strangled in the tide. 

Give me, instead of Beauty's bust, 

A tender heart, a loyal mind 
Which with temptation I would trust, 

Yet never link'd with error find, — 

One in whose gentle bosom I 

Could pour my secret heart of woes, 

Like the care-burthen'd honey-fly 
That hides its murmurs in the rose, — 

My earthly Comforter 1 whose love 

So indefeasible might be 
That, when my spirit winged above, 

Hers could not stay,, for sympathy. 



AN OFFER. 

I WANT you, Carrie, for my wife. 
You may hunt far and wide, but 
you'll find nobody that'll keer for you 
as I will. Every man, Carrie, that's 
worth his salt must find a woman to work 
for, and when he's nigh on to thirty, as I 
am, he wants to see a youngster grow up 
to take his place when he gits old : other- 
wise, no matter how lucky he is, there's 
not much comfort in livin'. Perhaps I 
don't talk quite as fine as some, but talk- 
ing's like the froth on the creek, maybe 
it's shallow, and maybe it's deep — you 
can't tell. The heart's tlie main thing, 
and thank God, I'm right there. Carrie, 
don't trifle with me. 

BAYARD TAYLOR. 



If Virtue could be seen she would be 
loved. If Truth could be heard she 
would be obeyed. 



71 



THE PORTRAIT. 



SUMMER DAYS. 



G 



OME, thou best of painters, 

Prince of the Ehodian art; 
Paint, thou best of painters, 

The mistress of my heart — 
Though absent — from the picture 
Which I shall now impart. 

First paint for me her ringlets 
Of dark and glossy hue, 

And fragrant odors breathing — 
If this thine art can do. 

Paint me an ivory forehead 
That crowns a perfect cheek, 

And rises under ringlets 

Dark-colored, soft, and sleek. 

The space between the eyebrows 
Not mingle nor dispart. 

But blend them imperceptibly 
And true will be thy art. 

From under black-eye fringes 
Let sunny flashes play — 

Cythera's swimming glances, 
Minerva's azure ray. 

With milk commingle roses 
To paint a nose and cheeks — 

A lip like bland persuasion's — ■ 
A lip that kissing seeks. 

Within the chin luxurious 

Let all the graces fair, 
Round neck of alabaster, 

Be ever flitting there. 

And now in robes invest her 
Of palest purple dyes, 
J Betraying fair proportions 
To our delighted eyes. 

Cease, cease, I see before me 
The picture of my choice ! 

And quickly wilt thou give me — 
The music of thy voice. 

ANACREON. (Greek,) 
Translation of William Hay. 



1 



N summer, when the days were long, 
We walked together in the wood : 
Our heart was hght, our step was strong; 
Sweet flutterings were there in our blood, 
In summer, when the days were long. 



72 



We strayed from morn till evening came; 
We gathered flowers, and wove us crowns ; 
We walked mid poppies red as flame, 
Or sat upon the yellow downs ; 
And always wished our life the same. 

In summer, when the days were long, 
We leaped the hedgerow, crossed the bro^k ; 
And still her voice flowed forth in song, 
Or else she read some graceful book, 
In summer, when the days were long. 

And then we sat beneath the trees. 
With shadows lessening m the noon ; 
And, in the sunlight and the breeze, 
We feasted, many a gorgeous June, 
While larks were singing o'er the leaa. 

In summer, when the days were long, 
On dainty chicken, snow-white bread. 
We feasted, with no grace but song; 
We plucked wild strawb'ries, ripe and red, 
In summer, when the days were long. 

We loved, and yet we knew it not — 
For loving seemed like breathing then ; 
We found a iieaven in every spot; 
Saw angels, too, in all good men ; 
And dreamed of God' in grove and grot. 

In summer, when the days are long. 
Alone I wander, muse alone ; 
I see her not ; but that old song 
Under the fragrant wind is blown. 
In summer, when the days are long. 

Alone I wander in the wood ; 
But one fair spirit hears my sighs; 
And half I see, so glad and good. 
The honest daylight of her eyes, 
That charmed me under earlier skies. 

In summer, when the days are long, 
I love her as we loved of old ; 
My heart is light, my step is strong ; 
For love brings back those hours of gold, 
In summer, when the days are long. 



BECAUSE. 



I 



T is not because your heart is mine — mine only- 
Mine alone; 
It is not because you chose me, weak and lonely^ 

For your own ; 
Not because the earth is fairer, and the skies 

Spread above you 
Are more radiant for the shining of your eyes — 
That I love you ! 

It is not because the world's perplexed meaning 

Grows more clear ; 
And the Parapets of Heaven, with angels leaning, 

Seen more near ; 
And Nature sings of praise with all her voices 

Since yours spoke, 
Since within my silent heart, that now rejoices, 

Love awoke ! 

Nay, not even because your hand holds heart and life ; 

At your will 
Soothing, hushing all its discord, making strife 

Calm and still; 
Teaching Trust to fold her wings, nor ever roam 

From her nest; 
Teaching Love that her securest, safest home 

Must be Rest. 

But because this human Love, though true and sweet— 

Yours and mine — 
Has been sent by Love more tender, more complete, 

More divine ; 
That it leads our hearts to rest at last in Heaven, 

Far above you ; 
Do I take you as a gift that God has given — 

And I love you ! 

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER, 



LOVE'S SONG. THERESA'S ANSWER TO 
WILHELM. 



THE Sun, the Rose, the Lily, the Dove, — 

I loved them all, in my early love. T 

I love them no longer, but her alone, — I 

The Pure, the Tender, the Onlv. the One. 1 



AM yours, as I am, and as you know 

me; I call you mine, as you are, and 
The Pure, the Tender, the Only, the One, JL ' -^ ' ^ *'. ' 

T, 1 V 1/ ^ o T as I know you. What m ourselves 

For she herself, my Queen of Love, -^ 

Is Rose, and Lily, and Sun, and Dove ! wedlock changes, we shall §tudy to adjust 

HEiNRicH HEINE. ^7 Tcasou, checrfuluess, and mutual 

Translated by James Freeman Clarke. good-will. GOETHE. 

73 



LOCHINVAR 



OH, young Lochinvar is come out of the "West, — • 
Through all the wide Border his steed was the bestj 
And save his good broadsword he weapons had none,— 
He rode all unarm'd and he rode all alone, 
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war. 
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar. 

He stay'd not for brake, and he stopped not for stone, 

He swam the Eske river where ford there was none. 

But ere he alighted at Netherby gate, 

The bride had consented, the gallant came late; 

For a laggard in love and a dastard in war 

Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. 

So boldly he enter'd the Netherby hall, 

'Mong bridesmen and kinsmen and brothers and all. 

Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword 

(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word), 

'' Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war. 

Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?" 

"I long woo'd your daughter, — my suit you denied; 
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide; 
And now I am come, with this lost love of mine 
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. 
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely, by far, 
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar." 

The bride kissed the goblet, the knight took it up, 
He quaff'd off the wine and he threw down the cup. 
She look'd down to blush, and she look'd up to sigh. 
With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye. 
He took her soft hand ere her mother could bar : 
" Now tread we a measure," said young Lochinvar. 

So stately his form, and so lovely her face, 

That never a hall such a galliard did grace, 

While her mother did fret, and her father did fume. 

And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume. 

And the bridemaidens whisper'd, " 'Twere better by far 

To have match 'd our fair cousin with young Lochinvar." 

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, 
When they reach'd the hall-door, and the charger stood near; 
So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung, 
So light to the saddle before her he sprung ! 
"She is woni we are gone, over bank, brush, and scaur; 
They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar. 

74 



LOCHINVAR, 

There was mounting 'mong Grscmes of the Netherby clan; 

Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran ; 

There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee, 

But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see. 

So daring in love, and so dauntless in war. 

Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar? 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 



THE LOVE-KNOT, 

TyiiSTG her bonnet under her chin, 
She tied her raven ringlets in; 
But not alone in its silken snare 
Did she catch her lovely floating hair, 
For tying her bonnet under her chin, 
She tied a young man's heart within. 

They were strolling together up the hill, 
Where the wind conies blowing merry and 

chill; 
And it blew the curls a frolicsome race 
All over the happy peach-color'd face, 
rill, scolding and laughing, she tied them in, 
Under her beautiful dimpled chin. 

And it blew a color, bright as the bloom 
Of the pinkest fuchsia's tossing plume. 
All over the cheeks of the prettiest girl 
That ever imprison'd a romping curl. 
Or, in tying her bonnet under her chin, 
Tied a young man's heart within. 

Steeper and steeper grew the hill — • 
Madder, merrier, chillier still 
The western winds blew down and play'd 
The wildest tricks with the little maid, 
As, tying her bonnet under her chin. 
She tied a young man's heart within. 

western wind, do you think it was fair 

To play such tricks with her floating hair? 

To gladly, gleefully do your best 

To blow her against the young man's breast? 

Where he as gladly folded her in ; 

He kiss'd her mouth and dimpled chin. 

Oh, Ellery Vane, you little thought, 
An hour ago, when you besought 
This country lass to walk with you, 
After the sun had dried the dew. 
What perilous danger you'd be in, 
As ahe tied her bonnet under her chin. 

NORA PERRY. 



WHEN STARS ARE IN THE QUIET 
SKIES. 

WHEN stars are in the quiet skies. 
Then most I pine for thee ; 
Bend on me then thy tender eyes, 
As stars look on the sea ! 
For thoughts, like waves that glide by night, 

Are stillest when they shine ; 
Mine earthly love lies hush'd in light 
Beneath the heaven of thine. 

There is an hour when angels keep 

Familiar watch o'er men. 
When coarser souls are wrapt in sleep — 

Sweet spirit, meet me then ! 
There is an hour when holy dreams 

Through slumber fairest glide ; 
And in that mystic hour it seems 

Thou shouldst be by my side. 

My thoughts of thee too sacred are 

For daylight's common beam : 
I can but know thee as my star, 

My angel and my dream ; 
When stars are in the quiet skies. 

Then most I pine for thee : 
Bend on me then thy tender eyes. 

As stars lock on the sea! 

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON. 



LOVE NOT ME. 



LOVE not me for comely grace, 
For my pleasing eye or face, 
Nor for any outward part, 
No, nor for my constant heart; 
For those may fail or turn to ill, 

So thou and I shall sever; 
Keep therefore a true woman's eye, 
And love me still, but know not why 
So hast thou the same reason still 
To doat upon me ever. 



75 



ASKING THE GOV^NOR. 



qImITH had just asked Mr. Thomp- 
1^ sou's daughter if she would give 
J^ him a lift out of his slough of 
bachelordom, and she had said ^^Yes.'^ 

It therefore became necessary to get the 
old gentleman's permission, so, as Smith 
said, arrangements might be made to hop 
the conjugal twig. 

Smith said he'd rather pop the inter- 
rogatory to all of old Thompson's daugh- 
ters, and his sisters, and his lady cousins, 
and his aunt Hannah in the country, and 
the whole of his female relations, than 
ask old Thompson. But it had to be 
done, and so he went down and studied 
out a speech which he was to disgorge at 
old Thompson the very first time he set 
eyes on him. So Smith dropped in on 
him one Sunday evening, when all the 
family had meandered round to chapel, 
and found him doing a sum in beer 
measure. 

"How are you. Smith?" said old 
Thompson, as the former walked in, white 
as a piece of chalk, and trembling as if he 
had swallowed a condensed earthquake. 
Smith was afraid to answer, 'cause he 
wasn't sure about that speech. He knew 
he had to keep his grip on it while he 
had it there, or it would slip from him 
quicker than an oiled eel through an 
augur-hole, so he blurted out : 

" Mr. Thompson — sir ; perhaps it may 
not be unknown to you that during an 
extended period of some five years I have 
been busily engaged in the prosecution of 
'a commercial enterprise — " 

" Is that so, and keepin' it a secret all 
this time, while I thought you were keepin' 
shop? Well, by George, you're a cute 
one, ain't you ?" 

Smith had to begin and think it over 
again, to get the run of it : 



" Mr. Thompson — sir ; perhaps it may 
not be unknown to you that, during the 
extended period of five years, I have been 
busily engaged in the prosecution of a 
commercial enterprise, with the determi- 
nation to secure a sufficient mainten- 
ance — " 

" Sit down. Smith, and help yourself to 
beer. Don't stand there holding your hat 
like a blind beggar with paralysis. I have 
never seen you behave yourself so queer 
in all my born days." 

Smith had been knocked out again, and 
so he had to wander back to take a fresh 
start : 

" Mr. Thompson — sir ; it may not be 
unknown to you that during an extended 
period of five years, I have been engaged 
in the prosecution of a commercial enter- 
prise, with the determination to procure a 
sufficient maintenance — " 

"Well?" asked old Thompson, but 
Smith went on : 

" In the hope that some day I might 
enter wedlock, and bestow my earthly 
possessions upon one whom I could call 
my own. I have been a lonely man, sir, 
i.. II: ive felt that it is not good for man 
to be alone ; therefore I would — " 

" INTcither is it ; I'm glad you came in. 
How's your father ?" 

" Mr. Thompson — sir," said Smith in . 
despairing confusion, raising his voice to 
a yell, " it may not be unknown to you 
that, during an extended period of a lonely 
man, I have been engaged to enter wed- 
lock, and bestowed all my enterprise on 
one whom I could determine to be good 
for certain possessions — no, I mean, thai 
is — Mr. Thompson, sir ; it may not be? 
unknown — " 

" And then again it may. Look here, 
Smith, you'd better lie down and take 
something warm — ^you ain't well." 



76 



ASKING THE GUVNOR. 



Smith's eyes stuck wildly out of his 
head with embarrassment, but he went on 
again : 

'^Mr. Thompson — sir; it may not be 
lonely to you to prosecute me whom a 
friend, for a commercial maintenance, but 
— but — eh — dang it — Mr. Thompson, sir : 
It—'' 

'' Oh, Smith, you talk like a fool. I 
never saw a more first-class idiot in the 
course of my whole life. What's the 
matter with you, anyhow ?" 

" Mr. Thompson — sir," said Smith, in 
an agony of bewilderment, " it may not 
be unknown that you prosecuted a lonely 
man who is not good for a commercial 
period of wedlock for some five years, 
but—" 

" See here, Smith, you're drunk, and if 
you can't behave better than that, you'd 
better leave; if you don't, I'll chuck you 
out, or I'm a Dutchman." 

" Mr. Thompson — sir," said Smith. * 
frantic with despair, ^^it may not be 
known to you that my earthly possessions 
are engaged to enter wedlock five years 
with a sufficiently lonely man, who is not 
good for a commercial maintenance — " 

" The very deuce he isn't. Now you 
jist git up and git out, or I'll knock the 
little brains out you've got left." 

With that, old Thompson took Smith 
and shot him into the street as if he'd run 
him against a locomotive train at the rate 
of sixty miles an hour. Before old 
Thompson had time to shut the front 
door, Smith collected his legs and c je 
thine: and another that were lying around 
on the pavement, arranged himself in a 
vertical position, and yelled out : 

" Mr. Thompson — sir ; it may not be 
known to you — " which made the old 
fellow so pink with rage, that he went 
out and set a bull terrier on Smith, before 



he had a chance to lift a brogan, and there 
was a scientific dog-fight, with odds in 
favor of the do^, for he had an awful 
hold for such a small animal. 

Smith afterwards married the girl, and 
lived happily about two months. At the 
end of that time he told a confidential 
friend that he would willingly take more 
trouble, and undergo a million more dog 
bites — to get rid of her. 

THE APPEAL. 



OH ! mother, cease to break my heart, 
I vow it now, I vowed it then — 
The kiss he left upon my lips, 
His lips shall one day take again ! 
Ah, well I mind the summer eve, 

A low scud swept the waning moon, 
And o'er the ripened clover-lea 
Floated the balmy breath of June. 

Among the dreamy woodland glooms, 

Alone, we breathed our parting sighs; 
Only the silent watching stars 

Looked on us, with their holy eyes. 
No golden circlet bound our love, 

No vow at sacred altar given ; 
Yet, in that hour, our married souls 

Were registered as one, in heaven. 

I will not live, a guilty thing, 

Pillowed upon another's breast, 
While every thought I send to him, 

Shall scare God's angels from my rest! 
Perjured — before a new-born soul ! 

[If such in holy trust were given.] 
Mother, I need a clean white hand 

To lead a Httle child to Heaven 1 

Oh, turn away your cruel eyes ! 

The gold you'd sell me for is dim; 
What need I bargain for the world ? 

I have my full round world in him. 
Then, mother, cease to break my heart, 

I vow it now, I vowed it then — 
The kiss he left upon my lips. 

His lips shall one day take again ! 

SARAH WARNER BROOKS. 



77 



LOVER'S PRECEPT. 



DO not let lis take the highway, sweet; 
It is full of curiouSj prying eyes. 
Let "QS choose the wandering path 
that lies 
Thro' the fields, and shuns the dust and 

heat — 
Daisy-hordered, bridged by waving shade 
Thro' whose interlacings glints the golden 

flood 
Which the priest this morning, when he 

prayed, 
Likened to the all-embracing love of God — 
Sweet the text that followed, I could have 

wished no other : 
"A new command I give. Love ye one 
another." 

I turned to watch you as the words divine 
Stole on my sense like music of the spheres; 
A flush crept o'er your cheek, a mist of tears 
Swam to your eyes, which drooped away 

from mine. 
I saw the hand that held your book of 

prayer 
Thrill like a flower swept by delicious gales; 
But not a look would you vouchsafe me 

there. 
Oh, lovely saint, shrined within altar veils. 
Were you afraid to turn and face your 

brother 
After the new command, "Love ye one 

another?" 

I will absolve you for the look not given, 
So fully doth suffice the look you give. 
Droop not, shy, lily lids but let me live, 
Forever in your eyes serene, blue heaven. 
Lay hand to heart, and tell me, maiden 

mine. 
If in the long, strange years you do not see. 
You fear you may regret the tender sign 
Of love and trust which you now give to mc. 
Or wish in secret it had been some other 
Who learned with you the lesson, " Love 

ye one another." 

For life will not be all like this, alas ! 
A walk thro' meadows, under skies so fair. 



With bobolinks a-trilling in the air, 
And daisies blooming golden in the grass. 
There will be rough and stormy days, my 

sweet. 
When God behind a cloud will hide Irom 

sight. 
And you and I, with hurt and wearj^ feet. 
Will j^ass through thorny ways to reach 

the light : 
Shall it be hand-in-hand, dear, and j^atient 

with each other, 
Kemembering the message, " Love ye one 

another ?" 

ANNIE I, . M U Z Z I E . 



ADVICE TO A YOUNG MAN. 



If MAN who iclUs it can go anywhere 

M and do what he determines to do. We 

I must make ourselves, or come to 

nothing. We must swim off, and not 

wait for any one to put cork under us. I 

congratulate you on being poor, and thus 

compelled to work ; it was all that ever 

made me what little I am. Made virtatc. 

Don't flinch, flounder, fall, nor fiddle, bul 

grapple like a man, and you will be a man. 

JOHN TODD, D. D. 



V 



COUNSEL TO YOUTH. 

IGOR, energy, resolution, firmness of 
purpose, — these carry the day. Is 
there one w^hom difficulties dishearten 
— who bend to the storm? He will dc> 
little. Is there one who will conquer? 
That man never fails. Let it be your first 
study to teach the world tha' you are not 
wood and straw — some iron in you. Let 
men know that what you say you will do; 
that your decision, once made, is fi;:a! — 
no wavering; that once resoh^ed, you aic 
not to be allured nor intimidated. Ac 
quire and maintain that character. 

T. F. BUXTON. 



TO SIGH, YET FEEL NO PAIN, 



TO SIGH, YET FEEL NO PAIN. 



TO sigh, yet feel no pain, 
To weep, j-et scarce know why; 
To sport an hour with beauty's chain, 
Then throw it idly by; 
To kneel at many a shrine, 

Yet lay the heart on none; 
To think all other charms divine, 

But tho.-^e we just have won; 
This is love, faitliless love, 
Such as kindleth hearts that rove. 

To keep one sacred flame. 

Through life unchilled, unmoved, 
To love in wintry age the age 

As first in j'outh we loved; 
To feel that we adore, 

Ev'n to such fond excess. 
That, though the heart would break with 
more. 

It could not live with less ; 
This is love, faithful love. 
Such as saints might feel above. 

THOMAS MOORE. 



DOWN the smooth stream of life the 
stripling darts, 
Gay as the morn; bright glows the 
vernal sky, 
Hope swells his sails, and Passion steers 

his course. 
Safe glides his little bark along the shore, 
Where Virtue takes her stand; but if too far 
He launches forth beyond discretion's 

mark. 
Sudden the tempest scowls, the surges roar, 
Blot his fair day, and plunge him in the 
deep. 



WER WENIG SUCHT, DER FINDET 
VIEL. 



ONLY a shelter for my head I sought, 
One stormy winter night; 
To me the blessing of my life was brought, 
jNIaking the whole world bright. 
How sliall I thank thee for a gift so sweet, 

O dearest Heavenly Friend? 
I sought a resting-place for weary feet, 
And found my journey's end. 



Only the latchet of a friendly door 

My timid fingers tried; 
A loving heart, with all its precious store, 

To me was opened wide. 
I asked for shelter from a passing shower^ 

My sun shall always shine ! 
I would have sat beside the hearth an hour-^ 

And the whole hearth was mine! 

FRIEDRICH RUCKERT. 
Translated by L. C. 



THE MIGHT OF ONE FAIR FACE. 



THE might of one fair face sublimes my 
love, 
For it hath weaned my heart from low 
desires ; 
Nor death I heed, nor purgatorial fires. 
Thy beauty, antepast of joys above. 
Instructs me in the bliss that saints approve; 
For oh, how good, how beautiful, must be 
The God that made so good a thing as thee. 
So fair an image of the heavenly Dove 1 

Forgive me, if I cannot turn away 

From those sweet eyes that are my earthly 

heaven ; 
For they are guiding stars, benignly given 
To tempt my footsteps to the upward way; 
And if I dwell too fondly in thy sight, 
I live and love in God's peculiar light. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
Translated by Hartley Coleridge. 

GENEVIEVE. 



MAID of my love, sweet Genevieve ; 
In beauty's light you glide along; 
Y^our eye is like the star of eve, 
And sweet your voice as seraph's song. 
Yet not your heavenly beauty gives 

This heart with passion soft to glow ; 
Within your soul a voice there lives, 

It bids you hear the tale of woe. 
When sinking low the sufferer wan 

Beholds no hand outstretched to save; 
Fair as the bosom of the swan 

That ri^es graceful o'er the wave, 
I've seen your breast with pity heave, 
And therefore love I you, sweet Genevieve. 

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGIs. 



THE CONFESSION. 



IT !NT) must I tell thee, dearest, that I trembled, when thj name 
M Was uttered in our household, in honor, or in blame; 
I And when thy manliness and worth all voices echoed loud, 
I coined some trifling error, my secret to enshroud ; 
Some dust upon the blossom, on the peerless gem a stain, 
A cloud in the cerulean, a shadow on the main. 

II. 

Though gallant youths full many might throng the festive hall, 
One noble form my partial eye could see amidst them all ; 
Though suitors clustered round me, and worshipped at my shrine, 
A cold abstracted notice, and changeless cheek were mine; 
A mist, a cloud, overshadowed the view of all save thee — 
Oh, if the wise ones listened, what would they think of me ? 

III. 

A dull, dull weight was at my heart, how sad the eve flew by, 
If vainly midst the motley crew, I sought thy speaking eye ; 
But mine the merry, merry heart, and thrill of maiden glee. 
If haply, in a far-off* group, I caught one glimpse of thee, 
Did I mark thy hastening footstep, oh, how I strove to hide 
The tell-tale blushes on my cheek, fretting my maiden pride. 

rv. 

I dare not own. Confessor, though I remember well. 

When, from a distant city, arrived a brilliant belle ; 

Her manners so bewitching, so exquisite her brow, 

Her eyes, the winning hazel hue, I think I see them now, 

How much I feared those eyes would come between my love 

and me! 
I felt that she was fair and good, and almost worthy thee ! 



And I must own Confessor, how oft I strolled alone, 

And mused upon thy flattering speech, and most persuasive tone. 

And marveled that thou didst not say the words I wished yet 

feared, 
Full many a castle, fair and grand, my frolic fancy reared. 
And spite of bitter, rankling words, good-natured friends 

might say. 
My trusting heart forever found some cause for thy delay ? 

80 




WHEN LOVE I.^ YOL'XG. 



THE CONFESSION. 

VI. 

And yet full oft would I resolve, that never, never more 

One thought of thee should haunt my mind, and conned it o'er 

and o'er, 
A hopeless task indeed it was, such mandate to obey, 
I counsel each young maiden such trial to essay ; 
But when thy deep devotion no longer was concealed, 
And jealous doubts and earnest hopes thy changeless heart 

revealed ; 

YIL 

The depth of joy which thrilled my soul, forbade my lips to speak, 
But could a lover's searching glance distrust my mantling cheek ? 
I hoped my life might prove for thee one long self-sacrifice. 
And prayed that I thy fondest dreams might ever realize ; 
And now are told, Confessor, my whims and follies, all. 
And censure from the wisey I think, most powerless will fall ! 

ELIZABETH AUSTIN. 



DAYS OF OUR YOUTH. 







H ! talk not to me of a name great in story ; 

The days of our youth are the days of our glory, 
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two and twenty 
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty. 



What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled ? 
'Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled ; 
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary, — 
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory ? 

Fame ! if I e'er took delight in thy praises, 
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases 
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover 
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her. 

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee ; 
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee ; 
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story, 

1 knew it was love, and I felt it was glory. 

LORD BYROIf. 

6b 81 



THE HERMIT. 



ii T^URN, gentle hermit of the dale, 
I And gui^e my lonely way 
'*' To where your taper cheers the vale 
With hospitable ray. 

** For here forlorn and lost I tread, 
With fainting steps and slow ; 

Where wilds, immeasurably spread, 
Seem lengthening as I go." 

"Forbear, my son," the hermit cries, 
" To tempt the dangerous gloom ; 

For yonder faithless phantom flies 
To lure thee to thy doom. 

" Here to the houseless child of want 

My door is open still ; 
And though my portion is but. scant, 

I give it with good will. 

" Then turn to-night, and freely share 

Whate'er^my cell bestows; 
My rushy couch and frugal fare. 

My blessing and repose. 

" No flocks that range the valley free 

To slaughter I condemn ; 
Taught by that power that pities me, 

I learn to pity them ; 

" But from the mountain's grassy side 

A guiltless feast I bring ; 
A scrip with herbs and fruits supplied, 

And water from the spring. 

"Then, pilgrim, turn; thy cares forego; 

All earth-born cares are wrong; 
Man wants but little here below, 

Nor wants that little long." 

" Soft as the dew from heaven descends. 

His gentle accents fell ; 
The modest stranger lowly bends, 

And follows to the cell. 

Far in a wilderness obscure 

The lonely mansion lay ; 
A refuge to the neighboring poor, 

And strangers led astray. 



No stores beneavh its humble thatch 

Required a master's care ; 
The wicket, opening with a latch^ 

Received the harmless pair. 

And now, when busy crowds retire 

To take their evening rest, 
The hermit trimm'd his little fire, 

And cheer'd his pensive guest ; 

And spread his vegetable store. 
And gaily prest and smiled ; 

And skill'd in legendary lore. 
The lingering hours beguiled. 

Around, in sympathetic mirth, 

Its tricks the kitten tries ; 
The cricket chirrups on the hearth; 

The crackling fagot flies. 

But nothing could a charm impart 
To soothe the stranger's woe ; 

For grief was heavy at his heart, 
And tears began to flow. 

His rising cares the hermit spied. 
With answering care opprest :^ 

"And whence, unhappy youth," he cried, 
"The sorrows of thy breast? 

" From better habitations spurn'd, 

Reluctant dost thou rove ? 
Or grieve for friendship unreturn'd, 

Or unregarded love? 

"Alas ! the joys that fortune brings 

Are trifling, and decay ; 
And those who prize the paltry things 

More trifling still than they. 

"And what is friendship but a name, 
A charm that lulls to sleep ; 

A shade that follows wealth or fame, 
And leaves the wretch to weep? 

"And love is still an emptier sound, 
The modern fair one's jest; 

On earth unseen, or only found 
To warm the turtle's nest. 



82 



THE HERMIT, 



" For shame, fond youth ! thy sorrows 
hush, 

And spurn the sex," he said; 
But, while he spoke, a rising blush 

His lovelorn guest betray'd. 

Surprised, he sees new beauties rise, 

Swift mantling to the view; 
Like colors o'er the morning skies, 

As bright, as transient too. 

The bashful look, the rising breast. 

Alternate spread alarms : 
The lovely stranger stands confest, 

A maid in all her charms. 

"And, ah ! forgive a stranger rude, 
A wretch forlorn," she cried; 

" Whose feet unhallow'd thus intrude 
Where heaven and you reside. 

" But let a maid thy pity share, 
AVhom love has taught to stray ; 

Who seeks for rest, but finds despair 
Companion of her way. 

" My father lived beside the Tyne, 

A wealthy lord was he ; 
And all his wealth was mark'd as mine, 

He had but only me. 

" To win me from his tender arms, 

Unnumber'd suitors came; 
Who praised me for imputed charms, 

And felt, or feigned, a flame. 

" Each hour a mercenary crowd 
With richest proffers strove ; 

Among the rest young Edwin bow'd, 
But never talk'd of love. 

" In humble, simplest habit clad, 
No wealth nor power had he ; 

Wisdom and worth were all he had. 
But these were all to me. 

"And when beside me in the dale 

He caroll'd lays of love, 
His breath lent fragrance to the gale, 

And music to the grove. 



" The blossom opening to the day, 
The dews of heaven refined, 

Could naught of purity display 
To emulate his mind. 

" The dew, the blossom on the tree. 
With charms inconstant shine ; 

Their charms were his, but, woe to mel 
Their constancy was mine. 

"For still I tried each fickle art, 

Importunate and vain ; 
And while his passion touch'd my heart, 

I triumph 'd in his pain: 

" Till, quite dejected wdth my scorn. 

He left me to my pride ; 
And sought a solitude forlorn, 

In secret, where he died. 

" But mine the sorrow, mine the fault, 
And well my life shall pay; 

I'll seek the solitude he sought. 
And stretch me where he lay. 

"And there forlorn, despairing, hid, 

I'll lay me down and die; 
'Twas so for me that Edwin did. 

And so for him will I." 

"Forbid it. Heaven !" the hermit cried, 
And clasp'd her to his breast; 

The wondering fair one turn'd to chide, 
'Twas Edwin's self that prest. 

" Turn, Angelina, ever dear, 
My charmer, turn to see 
Thy own, thy long-lost Edwin here, 

Restored to love and thee. 

" Thus let me hold thee to my heart. 

And every care resign ; 
And shall Ave never, never part, 

My life — my all that's mine ? 

" No, never from this hour to part, 
We'll live and love so true; 

The sigh that rends thy constant heart 
Shall break thy Edwin's too." 

OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



83 



THE STEADFAST SHEPHERD. 



HENCE away, thou Syren, leave me. 
Pish ! unclasp those wanton arms; 
Sugared words shall ne'er deceive me, 
Though thou prove a thousand charms. 
Fie, fie, forbear ; no common snare 

Can ever my affection chain : 
Your painted baits, and poor deceits. 
Are all bestow'd on me in vain. 

I'm no slave to such as you be ; 

Neither shall a snowy breast. 
Wanton eye, or lip of ruby. 

Ever rob me of my rest. 
Go, go, display your beauty's ray, 

To some o'er-soon enamor'd swain : 
Those common wiles, of sighs and smiles, 

Are all bestow'd on me in vain. 

I have elsewhere vow'd my duty; 

Turn away your tempting eye ; 
Show not me a naked beauty ; 

Those impostures I despise : 
My spirit loathes where gaudy clothes 

And feigned oaths my love obtain ; 
I love her so whose look swears wo. 

That all your labors will be vain. 

Can he prize the tainted posies. 
Which on every breast are worn. 

That may pluck the spotless roses 

From their never-touch'd thorn? 

I can go rest on her sweet breast 

That is the pride of Cynthia's train ; 

Then hold your tongues ; your mermaid 
songs 
Are all bestow'd on me in vain. 

He's a fool that basely dallies 

Where each peasant mates with him : 
Shall I haunt the throng'd valleys. 

While there's noble hills to climb ? 
No, no, though clowns are scared with 
frowns, 

I know the best can but disdain : 
And those I'll prove : so shall your love 

Be all bestow'd on me in vain. 



Yet I would not deign embraces 

With the fairest queens that be. 
If another shared those graces 

Which they had bestow'd on me. 
I'll grant that one my love, where none 

Shall come to rob me of my gain ; 
The fickle heart makes tears and art, 

And all, bestow'd on me in vain. 

I do scorn to vow a duty, 

Where each lustful lad may woo ; 
Give me her whose sunlike beauty 

Buzzards dare not soar unto : 
She, she it is affords that bliss. 

For which I would refuse no pain ; 
But such as you, fond fools, adieu. 

You seek to captive me in vain. 

She, that's proud in the beginning, 

And disdains each looker-on. 
If a coy one in the winning, 

Proves a true one, being won. 
Whate'er betide, she'll ne'er divide 

The favor she to one doth deign ; 
But your fond love will fickle prove, 

And all that trust in you are vain. 

Therefore know, when I enjoy one, 

And for love employ my breath. 
She I court shall be a coy one 

Though I win her with my breath. 
A favor there few aim at dare ; 

And if, perhaps, some lover plain, 
She is not won, nor I undone 

By placing of my love in vain. 

Leave me, then, thou Syren, leave me; 

Take away these charmed arms ; 
Crafty wiles cannot deceive me, 

I am proof 'gainst women's charms : 
You labor may to lead astray 

The heart, that constant must remain ', 
And I the while will sit and smile 

To see you spend your time in vain. 

GEORGE WITHER. 



84 



LADY CLARE, 



LADY CLARE. 



IT was the time when lilies blow, 
And clouds are highest up in air, 
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe 
To give his cousin. Lady Clare. 

I trow they did not part in scorn : 
Lovers long betroth'd were they: 

riiey two will wed the morrow morn : 
God's blessing on the day ! 

''He does not love me for my birth, 
Nor for my lands so broad and fair ; 

He loves me for my own true worth, 
And that is well," said Lady Clare. 

In there came old Alice the nurse, 

Said, *' Who was this that went from thee?" 

"It was my cousin," said Lady Clare, 
"To-morrow he weds with me." 

"Oh, God be thank'd !" said Alice the nurse, 
"That all comes round so just and fair: 

Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands. 
And you are not the Lady Clare." 

"Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my 
nurse?" 

Said Lady Clare, "that ye speak so wild?" 
"As God's above," said Alice the nurse, 

" I speak the truth : you are my child. 

"The old earl's daughter died at my breast; 

I speak the truth, as I live by bread ! 
I buried her like my own sweet child, 

And put my child in her stead." 

"Falsely, falsely have ye done, 
O mother," she said, " if this be true, 

To keep the best man under the sun 
So many years from his due." 

"Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, 
"But keep the secret for your life, 

A.nd all you have will be Lord Ronald's, 
When you are man and wife." 

"If I'm a beggar born," she said, 
" I will speak out, for I dare not lie. 

Pull off, pull off the brooch of gold, 
And fling the diamond necklace by." 

"Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, 
" But keep the secret all ye can." 

She said, "Not so: but I will know 
If there be any faith in man." 



**Nay now, what faith?" said Alice the nurse, 
*'The man will cleave unto his right." 

"And he shall have it," the lady replied, 
"Though I should die to-night." 

"Yet give one kiss to your mother, dear I 
Alas, my child, I sinned for thee." 

"O mother, mother, mother," she said, 
"So strange it seems to me ! 

"Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear, 

My mother dear, iftnis be so. 
And lay your hand upon my head, 

And bless me, mother, ere I go." 

She clad herself in a russet gown. 

She was no longer Lady Clare : 
She went by dale, and she went by down. 

With a single rose in her hair. 

The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought 

Leapt up from where she lay, 
Dropp'd her head in the maiden's hand. 

And follow'd her all the way. 

Down stepp'd Lord Ronald from his tower: 
"O Lady Clare, you shame your worth! 

Why come you dress'd like a village maid. 
That are the flower of the earth !" 

"If I come dress'd like a village maid, 

I am but as my fortunes are : 
I am a beggar born," she said, 

"And not the Lady Clare." 

" Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, 
" For I am yours in word and in deed. 

Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, 
"Your riddle is hard to read." 

Oh, and proudly stood she up ! 

Her heart within her did not fail : 
She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes, 

And told him all her nurse's tale. 

He laugh'd a laugh of merry scorn : 

He turn'd and kiss'd her where she stood: 

"If you are not the heiress born. 

And I," said he, " the next in blood — • 

" If you are not the heiress born, 
And I," said he, the lawful heir, 

We two will wed to-morrow morn, 
And you shall still be Lady Clare." 

ALFRED TENNYSON. 



85 



SUMMER. 



jr EOUND this lovely valley rise 
11 The purple hills of Paradise. 
X I Oh, softly on yon banks of haze 
JL Her rosy face the summer lays ; 
Becalmed along the azure sky 
The argosies of cloudland lie, 
Whose shores with many a shining rift 
Far-off their pearl-white peaks uplift. 

Through all the long midsummer day 
The meadow sides are sweet with hay, 

I seek the coolest sheltered seat, 

Just where the field and forest meet, — 
Where grow the pine trees, tall and bland, 
The ancient oaks, austere and grand, 

And fringy roots and pebbles fret 

The ripples of the rivulet. 

I watch the mowers as they go 
Through the tall grass, a white-sleeved row; 
With even stroke their scythes they swing, 
In tune their merry whetstones ring. 
Behind, the nimble youngsters run, 
And toss the thick swaths in the sun. 
The cattle graze ; while warm and still 
Slopes the broad pasture, basks the hill, 
And bright, when summer breezes break, 
The green wheat crinkles like a lake. 

The butterfly and bumble-bee 
Come to the pleasant woods with me; 
Quickly before me runs the quail, 
Her chickens skulk behind the rail, 
High up the lone wood-pigeon sits. 
And the woodpecker pecks and flits. 
Sweet woodland music sinks and swells. 
The brooklet rings its tinkling bells. 

The swarming insects drone and hum. 
The partridge beats his throbbing drum, 

The squirrel leaps among the boughs. 

And chatters in his leafy house; 
The oriole flashes by; and look — 
Into the mirror of the brook. 

Where the vain bluebird trims his coat, 

Two tiny feathers fall and float. 

As silently, as tenderly. 

The down of peace descends on me. 
Oh, this is peace ! I have no need 
Of friend to talk, or book to read : 



A dear Companion here abides, 
Close to my thrilling heart he hides; 

The holy silence is his voice ; 

I lie, and listen, and rejoice. 

JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE. 



YOUTH, THAT PURSUEST. 

YOUTH, that pursuest, with such eager pace, 
Thy even way. 
Thou pantest on to win a mournfiil race; 
Then stay! oh stay! 

Pause and luxuriate on thy sunny plain; 

Loiter — enjoy; 
Once past, thou never wilt come back again, 

A second boy. 
The hills of manhood wear a noble face, 

When seen from far; 
The mist of light from which they take theii' 
grace. 

Hides what they are. 

The dark and weary path those cliffs between 

Thou canst not know; 
And how it leads to regions never green. 

Dead fields of snow. 

Pause while thou may'st, nor deem that fate 
thy gain. 

Which, all too fast. 
Will drive thee forth from this delicious plain, 

A man at last. 

RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES. 



THE IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD 
EDUCATION. 

1 CONSIDER a human soul without 
education like marble in the quarry^ 
which shows none of its inherent 
beauties until the skill of the polishes 
fetches out the colors, makes the surface 
shine, and discovers every ornamental 
cloud, spot, and vein that runs through 
the body of.it. Education, after the same 
manner, when it works upon a noble 
mind, draws out to view every latent 
virtue and perfection, which, without such 
helps, are never able to make their 
appearance. a d d i s o n . 



86 



ON THE THRESHOLD. 



CItANDING on the threshold, 

1^ With her wakening heart and mind? 

j^ Standing on the tlireshokl, 

With her childhood left hehind ; 
Tlie woman softness blending 

With the look of sweet surprise 
For life and all its marvels 

That lights the clear blue eyes. 

Standing on the threshold, 

With light foot and fearless hand, 
As the young knight by his armor 

In minster nave might stand; 
The fresh red lip just touching 

Youth's ruddy rapturous wine, 
The eager heart all brave, pure hope. 

Oh, happy child of mine ! 

[ could guard the helpless infant 

That nestled in my arms : 
I could save the prattler's golden head 

From, petty baby harms; 
I could brighten childhood's gladness, 

And comfort childhood's tears, 
But I can not cross the threshold 

With the step of riper years. 

For hopes, and joys, and maiden dreams 

Are waiting for her there, 
Where girlhood's fancies bud and bloom 

In April's golden air; 
And passionate love, and passionate griefs, 

And passionate gladness lie 
Among the crimson flowers that spring 

As youth goes fluttering by. 

Ah! on those rosy pathways 

Is no place for sobered feet, 
My tired eyes have naught of strength 

Such fervid glow to meet; 
My voice is all too sad to sound 

Amid the joyous notes 
Of the music that through charmed air 

For opening girlhood floata 



Yet thorns amid the leaves may lurk. 

And thunder-clouds may lower. 
And death, or change, or falsehood blight 

The jasmine in the bower ; 
May God avert the woe, my child; 

But oh, should tempest come. 
Remember, by the threshold waits 

The i^atient love of home ! 



1 



ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN. 

rrASTE not of fish that have black 
tails ; that is, converse not with men 
that are smutted with vicious qualities. 
Stride not over the beam of the scales; 
wherein is taught us the regard we ought 
to have for justice, so as not to go beyond 
its measures. Sit not on a choenix; 
wherein sloth is forbidden, and we are 
required to take care to provide ourselves 
with the necessaries of life. Do not strike 
hands with every man; this means we 
ought not to be over-hasty to make ac- 
quaintance or friendship with others. 
AVear not a tight ring ; that is, we are to 
labor after a free and independent way of 
living, and to submit to no fetters. Eat 
not thy heart; which forbids to afflict our 
souls, and waste them with vexatious 
cares. Abstain from beans; that is, keep 
out of public offices, for anciently the 
choice of the officers of state was made 
by beans. 

PLUTARCH. 



THE AMUSEMENTS OF YOUTH. 

If those wlio are the enemies of inno- 
cent amusements had the direction of the 
world, they would take away the Spring 
and Youth, — the former from the year, 
the latter from human life. 

BALZAC. 



87 



WERE I BUT HIS OWN WIFE. 



WERE I but his own wife, to guard and guide him, 
'Tis little of sorrow should fall on my dear; 
I'd chant my low love verses, stealing beside him, 

So faint and so tender his heart would but hear; 
I'd pull the wild blossoms from valley and highland; 

And there at his feet I would lay them all down ; 
I'd sing him the songs of our poor stricken island, 

Till his heart was on fire with a love like my own. 
There's a rose by his dwelling — I'd tend the lone treasure 

That he might have flowers when the summer would come; 
There's a harp in his hall — I would wake its sweet measure, 

For he must have music to brighten his home. 
Were I but his own wife, to guide and to guard him, 

'Tis little of sorrow should fall on my dear ; ' 
For every kind glance my whole life would award him — 

In sickness I'd soothe and in sadness I'd cheer. 
My heart is a fount welling upward for ever — 

When I think of my true-love, by night or by day; 
That heart keeps its faith like a fast-flowing river 

Which gushes for ever and sings on its way. 
I have thoughts full of peace for his soul to repose in, 

Were I but his own wife, to win and to woo — 
Oh, sweet if the night of misfortune were closing 

To rise like the morning star, darling, for you! 

. MARY DOWNING. 

KINDRED SOULS. 

Those who are of kindred souls rarely wed together, far more rarely than those who are akin by blood. 



1 



T^HE bard has sung: God never formed a soul 
Without its own peculiar mate to meet. 
Its wandering half, when ripe to own the whole ; 

Bright plan of bliss, most heavenly, most complete. 
But thousand evil things there are that hate 

To look on happiness, these hurt, impede ; 
And leagued with lime, space, circumstance and fate, 

Keep kindred heart from heart, to pine and bleed. 
And as the dove to far Palmyra flying 

From where her native founts of Antioch beam, 
Weary, exhausted, longing, panting, sighing, 

'Lights sadly at the desert's bitter stream : 
So may a soul o'er Life's drear desert faring. 

Love's pure congenial spring unfound, unquaff'd, 
Sufler, recoil, then thirsty and despairing 

Of that it would, descend, and sip the nearest draught. 

MARIA del OccideniLL 

88 



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cc.^ 



A WEDDING. 



V 



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xiiA 



THE happy morn has smiling come; 
Before God's altar man and wife, 
Hand clasped in hand, all silent stand, 
One flesh, one life : 

Ah me ! ah me ! 
Is it for joy or misery ? 

The parting words with friends are said, 

The slippers and the rice are cast, 
And to new life man and wife 
Have gaily passed : 

Ah me ! ah me ! 
Is it joy or misery? 

Is it to live as God has willed, 

In bonds of love and sympathy? 
Is it to share or joy or care 
Co-equaily ? 

Is life to be 
One grand soul-stirring harmony? 

Or is it rather day by day 

To waken to their cruel liite? 
With icy heart to drift apart. 
And learn too late 

That life must be 
A dull, dead waste of misery? 

Nay, God forbid ! but let them go 

To such sweet life of perfect love, 
That hand in hand at length they'll stand 
In heaven above, 

And St) may be 
One life th-rough all eternity. 

89 



v^ 



lt'^ 



If 



JEALOUSY, THE TYRANT OF THE 
MIND. 

WHAT state of life can be so blest 
As love, that warms a lover's breast? 
Two souls in one, the same desire 
To grant the bliss, and to require ! 
But if in heaven a hell we find, 
'Tis all from thee, 
Jealousy ! 
'Tis all from thee, 
O Jealousy! 

Thou tyrant, tyrant Jealousy, 
Thou tyrant of the mind ! 

All other ills though sharp they prove, 
Serve to refine and perfect love : 
In absence or unkind disdain, 
Sweet hope relieves the lover's pain. 
But', ah ! no cure but death we find, 
To set us free from Jealousy : 
O Jealousy ! 

Thou tyrant, tyrant Jealousy, 
Thou tyrant of the mind 1 

False in thy glass all objects are. 
Some set too near, and some too far; • 
Thou art the fire of endless night. 
The fire that burns and gives no light. 
All torments of the damn'd we find 
In only thee, 
O Jealousy! 

Thou tyrant, tyrant Jealousy, 
Thou tyrant of the mind. 

JOHN DRYDEN. 



TO HIS 



MISTRESS, THE QUEEN 
OF BOHEMIA. 



f 



OU meaner beauties of the night, 
That poorly satisfy our eyes 

More by your number than your light — 
You common people of the skies — 
What are you when the moon shall rise ? 



You curious chanters of the wood, 
That warble forth dame Nature's lays. 

Thinking your passions understood 
By your weak accents — what's your praise 
When Philomel her voice shall raise ? 



You \iolets that first appear, 

By your pure purple mantles known, 

Like the proud virgins of the year. 
As if the spring were all your own — 
What are you when the rose is blown ? 

So when my mistress shall be seen 
In form and beauty of her mind; 

By virtue first, then choice, a queen — 
Tell me, if she were not design'd 
Th' eclipse and glory of her kind ? 

SIR HENRY WOTTON., 



WEDDING-DAY WISHES. 



? 



INCE I have not for your bridal 

Any precious off'erings brought — 
Gold, or gems, or costly fabric. 

By the curious workman wrought — 



Let your thought admit the fancy, 
While you read the words I write, 

That your friend's heart is a casket, 
And her wishes jewels bright. 

Thus you shall be fairly furnished 
With all favors brides should wear, 

For the neck, the wrists, the fingers, 
For your brow and shining hair. 

Husband's love and faith should crown you 
Better than wrought gems a queen; 

Wifely truth and trust illumine, 

More than pearls could, face and mien. 

Home and sweet content I wish you, 
More than lands and lofty hall — 

Bracelets these, and golden neck-chain 
Holding you in willing thrall. 

Daily, loving words of kindness. 
These for jeweled rings should be; 

Better than the diamond's radiance 
Is the light of charity. 

And for fairest, beit adorning, 

Never wanting, ever bright. 
Wear the "meek and quiet spirit," 

Priceless in the Giver's sight. 

These will fail not, though misfortune 

Sweep all earthly goods away; 
God's dear smile of love and favor 

Turneth darkness into day. 

ELEANOR S. DEANE. 



90 



MAKE THE MOST OF YOURSELF. 



CULTIVATE yourself; I do not mean 
in the sense of putting on a fini.-h, 
but of feeding the roots of your 
being, strengthening your capacities, 
nourishing whatever is good, repressing 
whatever is bad. Determine that not a 
power shall go to waste ; that every faculty 
shall do its utmost and reach its highest. 
I say to you with all carefulness the 
noblest sight this world offers is a young 
man bent upon making the most of him- 
self. Alas! that so many seem not to 
care what they become ; men in stature, 
but not yet born into a world of purpose 
and attainment, — babes in their compre- 
hension of life ! A cigar, a horse, a flir- 
tation, a suit of clothe^, a night of drink- 
ing, a low theatrical or dance, and just 
enough work to attain such things, or got 
without work, — how the spirits of the 
wise, sitting in the clouds, laugh at them ! 
AYhat an introduction to manhood and 
manly duties ! One cannot start thus in 
life, and himself master of it, or get any 
real good out of it. 

It is a sad thing to begin life with low 
conceptions of it. There is no misfortune 
comparable to a youth without a sense of 
nobility. Better be born blind than not 
see the glory of life. It is not, indeed, 
possible for a young man to measure life, 
but it it possible to cherish that lofty and 
sacred enthusiasm which the dawn of life 
awakens. It is possible to say, I am re- 
solved to put life to its noblest and best 
use. 

If I could get the ear of every young 
man for but one word, it would be this: 
Make the most and the best of yourself. 
There is no tragedy like wasted life, — 
life failing of its end, life turned to a 
false end. 

The true way to begin life is not to 
look off upon it to see what it offers, but 



to take a good look at self. Find out 
what you are, how you are made up, your 
capacities and lacks, and then determine 
to get the most out of yourself possible. 
Your faculties are avenues between the 
good of the world and yourself ; the 
larger and more open they are the more 
of it you will get. Your object should 
be to get all the riches and sweetness of 
life into yourself; the method is through 
trained faculties. You find yourself a 
mind : teach it to think to work broadly 
and steadily, to serve your needs pliantly 
and faithfully. You find in yourself 
social capacities : make yourself the best 
citizen, the best friend and neighbor, the 
kindest son and brother, the truest hus- 
band and father. Whatever you are 
capable of in these directions, that be and 
do. Let nothing within you go to waste. 
You also find in yourself moral and reli- 
gious faculties. Beware lest you suffer 
them to lie dormant, or but summon them 
to brief periodic activity. No man can 
make the most of himself who fails to 
train this side of his nature. Deepen and 
clarify your sense of God. Gratify by 
perpetual use the inborn desire for com- 
munion w^ith him. Listen evermore to 
conscience. Keep the heart soft and re- 
sponsive to all sorrow. Love with all 
lovers divine capacity and quality. And 
above all, let your nature stretch itself 
towards that sense of infinity that comes 
with the thought of God. There is noth- 
ing that so deepens and amplifies the 
nature as the use of it in moral and spir- 
itual ways. One cannot make the most 
of one's self who leaves it out. 



THEODORE T . M U N G E E , 



Every man's life is a fairy tale, writ- 
ten by God's fingers. 

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERS;"»N. 

91 



HER LETTER 



I'M sicting alone by the fire, 
Dress'd just as I came from, the dance, 
In a robe even you would admire — 
It cost a cool thousand in France ; 
I'm be-diamonded out of all reason, 

My hair is done up in a cue : 
In short, sir, "the belle of the season" 
Is wasting an hour on you. 

JL dozen engagements I've broken ; 

I left in the midst of a set ; 
Likewise a proposal, half spoken, 

That waits — on the stairs — for me yet. 
They say he'll be rich — when he grows up — 

And then he adores me indeed ; 
And you, sir, are turning your nose up, 

Three thousand miles off, as you read. 

"And how do I like my position?" 

"And what do I think of ISTew York?" 
"And now, in my higher ambition, 

With whom do I waltz, flirt, or talk?" 
"And isn't it nice to have riches, 

And diamonds and silks, and all that?" 
"And isn't it a change to the ditches 

And tunnels of Poverty Flat ?" 

Well, yes — if you saw us out driving 

Each day in the park, four-in-hand — 
If you saw poor dear mamma contriving 

To look supernaturally grand — • 
If you saw papa's picture, as taken 

By Brady, and tinted at that, — 
You'd never suspect he sold bacon 

And flour at Poverty Flat. 

And yet just this moment, when sitting 

In the glare of the grand chandelier — 
In the bustle and glitter befitting 

The "finest soiree of the year," 
In the midst of a gaze de Chambery, 

And the hum of the smallest of talk — 
Somehow, Joe, I thought of the "Ferry," 

And the dance that we had on "The Fork;" 

Of Harrison's barn, with its muster 

Of flags festoon'd over the wall ; 
Of the candles that shed their soft lustre 

And tallow on head-dress and shawl; 
Of the steps that- we took to one fiddle; 

Of the dress of my queer vis-a-ris, 
And how I once went down the middle 

With the man that shot Sandy McG^ee ; 



Of the moon that was quietly sleeping 

On the hill, when the time came to go; 
Of the few baby peaks that were peeping 

From under their bedclothes of snow; 
Of that ride — that to me was the rarest ; 

Of — the something you said at the gate: 
Ah, Joe, then I wasn't an heiress 

To "the best-paying lead in the State." 

Well, well, it's all past; yet it's funny 
To think, as I stood in the glare 

Of fashion and beauty and money. 
That I should be thinking, right there, 

Of some one who breasted high water, 
-And swam the I^orth Fork, and all that, 

Just to dance with old Folinsbee's daughter, 
The Lily of Poverty Flat. 

But goodness ! what nonsense I'm AvritingI 
(Mamma says my taste still is low), 

Instead of my triumphs reciting, 
. I'm spooning on Joseph — ^heigh-ho ! 

And I'm to be "finish'd" by travel — 
Whatever's the meaning of that — 

Oh, why did papa strike pay gravel 
In drifting on Poverty Flat ? 



Good-night — here's the end of my paper; 

Good-night — if the longitude please— 
For maybe, while wasting my taper, 

Your sun's climbing over the trees. 
But know, if you haven't got riches. 

And are poor, dearest Joe, and all that, 
That my heart's somewhere there in 
ditches. 

And you've struck it — on Poverty Flat. 

F. BRET HARTE 



th% 



B 



HESITATION. 

UT when at last I dared to speak, 
The lanes, you know, were white with 

May, 

Your ripe lips moved not, but your 
cheek 
Flushed like the coming of the da}'-; 
And so it was, half shy, half sly. 

You would, and would not, little one! 
Although I pleaded tenderly. 
And you and I were all alone ! 

ALFRED TENNYSON, 



92 



RETURN OF YOUTH. 



f 



ET grieve thou not, nor think thy youth is gone. 

Nor dream that glorious season e'er could die, 
Thy pleasant youth, a little while withdrawn, 

Waits on the horizon of a brighter sky ; 
Waits like the morn that folds her wings, and hides 

Till the slow stars bring back her dawning hour; 
Waits like the vanished spring, that slumbering bides, 

Bides her own sweet time to awaken bud and flower. 

There shall he welcome thee, when thou shalt stand 

On his bright morning hills, with smiles more sweet 
Than when at first he took thee by the hand, 

Through the fair earth to lead thy tender feet. 
He shall bring back, but brighter, broader still. 

Life's early glory to thine eyes again. 
Shall clothe thy spirit with new strength and fill 

Thy leaping heart with warmer love than then. 

Hast thou not glimpses in the twilight here, 

Of mountains Avhere immortal morn prevails; 
Comes there not through the silence to thine ear 

A gentle rustling of the morning gales ; 
A murmur wafted from that glorious shore 

Of streams that water banks forever fair, 
And voices of the loved ones gone before, 

More musical in that celestial air ? 

WILLIAM CULLEN BItYANT. 



LIFE IS BEFORE YE. The awful life that to your trust is given, 
Children of God ! inheritors of heaven ! 

LIFE is before ye ; from the fated road Mourn not the perishing of each fair toy; 

Ye cannot turn; then take ye up the Ye were ordained to to, not to enjoy — 

load, To suffer, which is nobler than do dare; 

Not yours to tread, or leave the unknown A holy burden is the life ye bear. 

way, Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly, 

Ye must go o'er it, meet ye what ye may; Stand up, and walk beneath it steadfastly; 

Gird up your souls within you to the Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin, 

deed ! But onward, upward, till tlic goal ye win! 

Angels and fellow-spirits bid ye speed. God guide ye, and God guard ye on your 
What though the brightness wane, the way, 

pleasure fade, Young warrior-pilgrims who set forth 
The glory dim ! Oh, not of those is made to-day. fanny k e m b l e . 

9? 



WHEN SUMMER GOES. 



W HEX Summer goes — ^then shadows creep 
Across the world of trees and flowers; 
The birds a solemn silence keep 
Through Autumn's slowly-dark'ning 
hours, 
And swiftly fades each lingering rose, 
'SM.ien Sitmmer goes. 

When Summer goes — then disappears 
Life's joyous youth : a goodly store 
Of spring-tide hopes, and dreams, and fears, 
And joys that will return no more; 
Life's sun a deeper shadow throws 
WTien summer goes. 



T^lien summer goes — still strength remains 
To bear whatever time may bring ; 
For truer, deeper couiiage reigns 
Tlioagh man may have no heart to sing-, 
And day by day Faith stronger grows, 
TMren Summer -^oes. 




H 




JWWex 



\/i&x3 



9- ?• 




m 




-^ 




SUMMER OF LIFE. 



Ability and Opportunity 

A Bird Song . 

Absence 

A Bunch of Roses , 

A Chain 

A Cycle . 

Advice to a Young Man 

Advice to Young Men 

A Girdle. . 

A Girl's Laugh 

A King's Wooing 

A Ma Future . 

An Offer 

A Pastoral Song 

Ardor of Youih . 

Asked and Answered 

Asking the Gov'nor 

A Stolen Kiss 

A Summer Eve's Voyage 

At the Church Gate 

A Warning to Young Men 

A Wedding 

A Woman's Answer 

A Woinan's Question 

Beautiful All- Golden Youth 

Because . . . . 

Before ihe Gate 

Behave Yourself before Folk 

Believe Me 

Betrothed . . . . 

Be Zealous 

Blackbc-ries and Kisses 

By the Sea 

Come into the Garden, Maud 
Come Rest in Thus Bosom 
Counsel to the Young 
Counsel to Youth 
Courtship . . , , 
Crowned in Summer , 

Cupid Swallowed • , 



38 
50 
40 
26 
26 
39 

37,87 
53 
45 
68 

52 

71 

6 

39 

28 

76 
62 

25 
52 
35 
89 

H 

28 

39 
73 
53 
23 
71 
30 
69 

13 

8 

58 
65 
43 
51,78 
66 
16 
46 



Days of Our Youth 

Delay 

Divided . . . . 

Down the Smooth Stream 



Emily is Married 

From the Sky .... 
From " The Merchant of Venice" 



Genevieve 

Go, Lovely Rose 

Gradua*-ed 



Had You Ever a Cousin, Tom ? 
Heartsease .... 
Her Letter .... 
Hesitation .... 



I Pri'thee Send Me Back My Heart 
It Never Comes Again 

Jealousy the Tyrant of the Mind 
Josh Billings on " Courtship" 



Kindred Souls 
Kiss Me Softly 
Kisses 



Lady Clare . 

Life Is Before You 

Lochinvar . 

Love 

Love Not Me 

Lover's I'recept 

Love's Omnipresence . 

Love's Song 

Love Will Find out the Way 

Maidenhood 

Make the Most of Yourself 




.23,46, 38, 57> 



59. 



95 



PAGE. 

81 

14 
60 
29 

54 

53 

02 

79 
62 
68 

41 

41 
92 

92 

48 



90 
22 

SS 

ID 

47 

85 

93 

74 

64, 67 

75 
78 
18 

73 
30 

54 
97 



INDEX. 



Mary Morison 

Miss Edith Helps Things Along 

My Kate 

iMobody Could Have Seen It 



Ode of Love 

Ode of Youth 
On the Door Step 
On the Threshold 



Platonic . . , , 

Pleasure 

Proposal 

Pure and True and Tender 



Reconstruction 
Return of Youth . 
Robin and I 
RoryO'More 
Rosader's Sonnetto 
Rustic Courtship . 



Serenade . , 

Sixteen 

Song 

Spinning ^Yheel Song 

Spring Thoughts 

Strict Integrity 

Success of Young Men 

Summer 

Summer Days . 

Sunshine and Shadow 



The Amusements of Youth 
The Annoyer 
The Appeal 
The Bridal— A Picture 
The Confession 
The Deaths of Love 
The Evening Time . 
The Exchange • 



PAGE. 

65 

69 
70 



II 

3 
10 

87 

57 
26 

58 
52 

13 

20 

49 
62 
18 

51 

44 
24,67 
61 
40 
36 
42 
86 
72 
19 



87 
8 

77 
53 
80 

46 
30 



The Father's Lament • • • 

The Girl for Me . , ♦ , 

The Girl of Cadiz ..op 

The Hermit .... 

The Importance of a Good Education 

The Joys of Youth 

The Long Path .... 

The Love-Knot .... 

The Loveliness of Love . 

The Maiden's Choice . 

The Might of One Fal- Face . 

The Objects of Education 

The Portrait . . . c . 

The Power of Love 

Theresa's Answer to Wilhelm . 

The Shepherds' Resolution . 

The Sleep of Youth .... 

The Steadfast Shepherd . , 

The AVhistler 

To His Mistress .... 

To Our Girls 

To Sigh Yet Feel No Pain . 

Twilight 

Two of Them .... 



Wedded 

Wedding Day Wishes . 

Were I But His Own Wife 

Wer Wenig Sucht, Der Findet Viel 

When Stars are in the Quiet Skies , 

When Summer Goes 

When Thou Art Near Me 

Where the Brook and River Meet 

Wisdom Gained by Experience 

Wooing 

Your First Sweet-heart . . , 

Youth 

Youth and Love .... 
Youth Pastures in a Valley All Its Own 
Youth That Pursuest . • • 

Zara's Ear- Rings • • • • « 



PAGE. 

53 
43 
47 
82 
86 
24 
45 
75 
71 
47 
79 
34 
72 

14 
73 
50 
28 
84 
36 
90 
55 
79 
7 
60 

42 
90 
88 
79 
75 
94 
40 

32 
45 
48 

44 
61 

43 
69 
86 

63 




96 



Without Labor tliere were ho ease, no rest, so inticli as conceivable. 

THOMAS CARLYLE, 



From Labor, there shall come forth rest. 

H. W. LONGFELLOW. 

It is not good for man to be alone. Hitherto all things that have been named 
were approved of God to be very good : loneliness is the first thing which God's eye 

named not good. john milton. 

None are so desolate but something dear 

] Dearer than self, possesses or possessed. lord byron. 



A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendship, all the enjoyments of 
sense and reason, and indeed all the sweets of life. joseph addison. 



Hail ! Wedded love. 
Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets. milton. 



Home is the resort 
Of Love, of joy, of peace and plenty, w^here 
Supporting and supported, polished friends 
And dear relations mingle into bliss. Thomson. 



The first sure symptom of a mind in health, 

Is rest of heart and pleasure felt at home. e. young. 



A mother is a mother still, 
The holiest thing alive. 



S. T, COLERIDGE. 



Once let friendship be given that is born of God, nor time, nor circumstance can 
change it to a lessening ; it must be mutual growth, increasing trust, widening faith, 
enduring patience, forgiving love, unselfish ambition, and an affection built before the 
Throne, which will bear the test of time and trial. allan throckmorton. 



Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and be loved is the greatest 
happiness of existence. sidney smith. 

The hues of bliss more brightly glow 

Chastened by sabler tints of woe. t. gray. 



Sorrow never comes too late, 

And happiness too swiftly flies. t. gray. 

2 



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ODE OF MANHOOD. 

Now flower and perfect fruit 

Together dress the tree, 

High midsiiinmer has come, midsummer 

mute 
Of song, but rich to scent and sight. 
The sun is high in heaven, the skies are bright 
And full of blessedness, 
High hope and wild endeavor 
Have fled or sunk for ever ; 
Only the swifter seasons onward press, 
And every day that goes 
Is a full-scented, full-blown garden rose, 
Orbed, complete. 



m^ 



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^^^^0^ 



ODE OF MANHOOD. 



A-nd every hour brings its own burden sweet 

Of daily duty, precious care ; 

Wherefrom the visible landscape calm and 

clear 
Shows finer, far, and the high heaven more 

near. 
Than ever morning skies of sunrise were. 
I miss the unbounded hope of old, 
The freshness and the glow of youth; 
I miss the fever and tne fret, 
The luminous haze of gold. 
I see a mind clearer and calmer 3^et, 
A more unselfish love, a more undoubted 

truth ; 
Such gain I take, and this 
More gracious shows and fair than that I miss. 



AUTUMN LEAVES. 



rpHAT 
, .1 W] 



wondrous glory crowns the 

•Toves, 
'hen Autumn days are near, 
For whether green or crimson dyed, 
Golden, or brown and sere, 
Still beautiful in varied tints 

The Autumn leaves appear. 
Poets who bow at beauty's shrine, 
Have penned their metres long. 
And tried in varied verse and line 

To render it in song. 
But beauty far beyond their rhymes 

For you, fair leaves, belong. 
And artists, too, with pencilings — 

Proficients rare and wise. 
To master the great masterpiece, 

In turn each vainly tries, 

Tlie painting of a hand divine 

Their utmost skill defies. 

And yet, fair leaves, one pensive thought 

My heart wdll not deny. 
While wild winds chant your requiem 

As through the trees they sigh. 
Tis that the beautiful of earth 

Should brighten but to die. 

'Tis said that flowers and leaves re^dve, 

But ah ! it is not so. 
Tis true when Summer comes again 

That other leaves will grow 
\nd wave in beauty o'er your graves, 

Wliere ye are lying low. 



Whence comes your beauty. Autumn 
leaves. 

The gorgeous hues we see? 
Ye toil not, neither do ye spin, 

From care and labor free. 
Yet Solomon in all his pomp 

Was not arrayed as ye. 

When Summer sought the realms of life. 

Where frosts no beauties mar, 
As joyously she stepped within, 

She left the door ajar. 
And rays of glory shining through 

Burst on you from afar. 

The good in dying catch a glimpse 

Of glory oft I know. 
And when my Autumn time shall come, 

And I from earth must go, 
Then let me fall like Autumn leaves, 

With glory all aglow. 

MARY SPARKES WHEELER. 

EQUINOCTIAL. 

^HE sun of life has crossed the line; 
The summer-shine of lengthened 
light 
Faded and failed — till, where I stand, 
T is equal day and equal night. 

One after one, as dwindling hours. 

Youth's glowing hopes have dropped away, 

And soon may barely leave the gleam 
That coldly scores a winter's day. 

I am not young — I am not old ; 

The flush of morn, the sunset calm, 
Paling, and deepening, each to each, 

Meet midway with a solemn charm. 

One side I see the summer fields. 
Not yet disrobed of all their green ; 

While westerly, along the hills, 

Flame the first tints of frosty sheen. 

Ah ! middle-point, where cloud and storm 
Make battle-ground of this my life ! 

Where, even-matched, the night and day 
Wage round me their September strifoo 

I bow me to the threatening gale : 

I know, when that is over-past, 
Among the peaceful harvest days 

An Inaian Summer comes at last ! 

MRS. A. D, T. WHITNEY, 




THE RIVER OF LIFE. 



|OWN from the heather-covered hills, 
Fed by a thousand little rills, 
Through sun and shadow, night 

and day. 
The brooklet speeds upon its way. 



Flashing through meadows in its pride, 
Flowing through towns that dull its tide, 
Through sun and shade, towards the sea, 
The river speeds unceasingly. 




So too from days of babyhood, 
When every minute has its mood, 
diangeful as any April day, 
Mfe's river speeds upon its way. 

Sj)arkling in all Youth's joyous pride, 
Dulled by stern Sorrow's murky tide, 
Through sun and shade, through joys 

and woes, 
Unceasingly Life's river flows, 



THE OLD FAm:slTOl5rr 

^j\^ MOTHER Idssedlierbab-/. 
Rocking it into rest, 
And gently clasped within 1\q£ arms* 
Jt. nestled .in her breasts 
The old fair story, 
Set round in glory, 
Wherever life is found ; 
For' oh ! it's love, it's love, they say, 
Tliat makes tlis^woilii go rQund^ 




CHRYSANTHEMUMS. 



'HEN Summer flowers liave passed 
away — 
Each lingering petal shed, 
When M ature dons a sober grey, 

And the last rose is dead ; '> 
When trees have lost their robes of green — 

Then.^.like a regal dower, 
The glad chrysanthemum is seen — 
Old Autumn's fairest flower. 



So, too, when health and strength grow lessj 

And age is creeping on ; 
When Summer*s joy and happiness 

Have blossomed and have gone — 
Then,' in the Autumn of our days, 

Bright precious blooms appear ; 
New hopes, new joys, to grace the ways 

Of life's swift-closing year." 



> t> : AUTUMN. : < t ' 



^OJjD upon the hill-side, heaving like the 
1^. seas, 

vA For the corn is yellow-ripe waving in 

the breeze, 
And in orchards, apples red are weighing 
down the trees. 

Emeralds on the lowlands where the river 
flows ; 

In the pastures sweet and green, kine and 
sheep repose. 

And the glittering dragon-fly like an earth- 
star glows. 

Silver on the broad mere, 'neath the noon- 
day light, 

While the fair-winged shallops skim the waters 
jright. 

And the white clouds in the sky sail in airy 
flight. 

There is brightness in the heavens, freshness 
in the air, 

Ripeness in the teeming earth, richness every- 
where. 

For the world to-day is filled with all things 
good and fair. 

Glorious Autumn ! well of thee poets sang of 

old. 
Gathering round thee luscious fruits, wealth 

of grain untold, 
Decking thee in regal robes of purple and of 

gold. 



Well have limners painted thee in thy yellow 
hair, 

Matron with thy sun-bronzed brow, thy ma- 
jestic air, 

Thy rounded breast, thy broad full waist, thy 
strong arms brown and bare. 

But thou art lovelier by far than poet ever 
sung, 

Or painter with his gorgeous dyes upon the 
canvas hung, 

Most bountiful, most beautiful thy season- 
mates among. 

The murmuring streams, the rustling trees, 

the dulcet low of herds. 
The song of winds, the hum of bees, the 

melody of birds — • 
God's poets they, that chant thy praise in 

hymns more grand than words. 

The golden morns, the crimson eves, the 

cloud-sprent blue of skies. 
The green of meads, the yellow fields where 

the rich harvest lies — ■ 
God's limners they, that paint thy charms 

with more than artist-dyes. 

Spring-tide is the year's gay youth — Summer 

is its prime ; 
In Faith Ave watch the growth of Spring — in 

Hope, the Summer time ; 
But mellow Autunm, like God's Love showers 

gifts on every clime. 

JOHN FRANCI5 WALLER. 



MANHOOD. 



AS we advance from youth to middle 
age, a new field of action opens, 
and a different character is required. 
The flow of gay impetuous spirits begins 
to subside | life gradually assumes a 
graver cast ; the mind a more sedate and 
thoughtful turn. . The attention is now 
transferred from pleasure to interest, to 
pleasure diffused over a wide extent and 
measured by a larger scale. Formerly, 
the enjoyment of the present moment 
occupied the whole attention; now no 



action terminates ultimately in itself, but 
refers to some more distant aim. 

Wealth and power, the instruments of 
lasting gratification, are now coveted more 
than any single pleasure ; prudence and 
foresight lay their plan ; industry carries 
on its patient eiforts ; activity pushes for- 
ward ; address winds around ; here an 
enemy is to be overcome, there a rival to 
be displaced; competition warms and the 
strife of the world thickens on every 
side. 



8 




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SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness ! 
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun ! 
Conspiring with him how to load and bless 
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves 
run — 
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees, 
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core — 

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel -shells 
With a sweet kernel — to set budding more, 
And still more, later flowers for the bees, 
Until they think warm days will never cease, 

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy 
cells. 

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 
Thee sitting careless on a granary -floor. 

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind ; 
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, 

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook 
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; 
And sometime like a gleaner thou dost keep 

Steady thy laden head across a brook ; 

Or by a cider-press, with patient look, 

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. 

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where arc they ^ 

Think not of them — thou hast tliy music too. 
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day. 
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue ; 
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft 

Or sinking, as the light wind lives or dies : 
And full-grown lambs loud bleat fron\ hilly bourn; 
Hedge-crickets sing ; and now with treble solt 
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft, 
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. 

John kkat5. 

9 




10 



-H LABOR AND REST. 



ODE OF LABOR, 



THEY do the Maker wrong 
Who with the closing days of youth 
Shutfiist the gate of Song; 
Nor ever can I hold it truth, 
With those who feign to tell the tale of lifi 
That only love is worth, the lore that bind* 
A youth and maid, nor care at all 
For the long summer ere the fruit shall 

fall, 
And hold not fit for song the glorious strife, 
The joy of toil and thought, the clash of 

vigorous minds, 
When knowledge flies before, and we pur- 
sue, 
And who the Fair once followed, follow 
now the True. 




ODE OF LABOR, 



Ah, full fair life ! if something we have lost, 

If never more again 

We feel the ancient joy, the former pain, 

If no more passion-tost 

Upon the tides of life we hurry by, 

The vrhite waves laughing as we plunge along, 

Nor watch the light clouds drift along the sky. 

While the glad South snatches us swift and 

strong 
To some blest isle beyond the purple wave. 
Where Love is Queen and Mirth, nor Prudence 

grave 
Nor Wisdom frowns, but to be glad is all, 
From jocund morn till dewy evening fall; 
Oh, if that sky is dark — those winds are still; 
Another day has risen : again from the East 
Our treasure is increased; 
And as the orient Lord begins to grow, 
New airs begin to blow, 
And on the calm majestic tide, 
Our full-sailed galleon comes to glide, 
Love, with its little skiff, has gone. 
Bat Life's great bark sails on. 

Toil is the law of life, and its best fruit; 

This from the uncaring brute 

Divides ; — this and the prescient mind whose 

store 
Grows daily more and more. 
Toil is the mother of wealth, 
The nurse of health ; 
Toil 'tis that gives the zest 
To well-earned rest; 
The law of life laid broad and deep 
As are the fixed foundations of the sea, 
The medicine of grief, the remedy, 
Wherefrom Life giveth his beloved sleep. 
Oh, labor truly blest! 
Thou rulest all the race! 
Over all the toiling earth I see thy gracious 

face 
Stand forth confest. 
Wherever thou art least. 
In those fair lands beneath the tropic blaze, 
The slothful savage, likened to the beast, 
Drags on his soulless length of days; 
Where most thou art, 
Man rises upward to a loftier height, 
And views the earth and heaven with clearer 

sight. 
And holds a cleaner heart. 

I see the toilers with the awaking morn, 
Ere yet the day is born, 



Go forth to labor over all the earth. 

In northern darkness, 'midst the wintry rain, 

The great bell clangs thro' the smoke-laden 

air; 
And ere light comes the workers gather there, 
While the great engines throb, the switt 

wheels turn, 
And the long, sickly gaslights flare and burn ; 
I hear the slow winch creak above the pit. 
While the black workers, who have toiled all 

night, 
Else, dazed, to rest and light; 
I see the fisher on the waking sea ; 
The great ship, full-manned, heaving silently 
Across the foam; reapers in j^ellow corn; 
The frosty shepherd in the early morn; 
The naked worker bent among the cane 
Or cotton; the vinedresser, lean and brown; 
The thousand labors of the busy town ; 
The myriad trades which in each clime and 

race 
Build up man's dwelling-j^lace; 
I see the countless toiling multitude; 
And all I see is good. 
But to ends nobler still 
The nobler workers of the world are bent. 
It is not best in an inglorious ease 
To sink and dull content. 
When wild revolts and hopeless miseries 
The unquiet nations fill ; 
It is not best to rot 

In dull observance, while the bitter ciy 
Of weak and friendless sufferers rends the sky 
Wailing their hopeless lot; 
Or rest in coward fear on former gain, 
Making old joys supply the present pain. 

Nay, best it is indeed 

To spend ourselves upon the general good; 
And, oft misunderstood. 

To strive to lift the knees and limbs that bleed ; 
This is the best, the fullest meed. 
Let ignorance assail or hatred sneer; 
Who loves his race he shall not fear; 
He suffers not for long, 

AVho doth his soul possess in loving, and 
grows strong. 

Oh, student ! far into the night 
From youth to age 
Bent low upon the blinding page. 
Content to catch some gleam of light ; 
Art thou not happy, though the world pass 
by?— 



1% 



J 



ODE OF LABOR, 



Happy though Honors seek thee not, nor 

Fame, 
And no man knoAvs thy name? — 
Happy in that blest company of old 
Whose names are writ in characters of gold 
Upon the rocks of Tnne, the glorious band 
WTio on the shining mountains stand, 
Thinker and jurist, bard or seer, 
Whatever name is brightest and most dear? 
Or thou with docile hand, 
Obedient to the visionary eye. 
Who 'midst art's precious work dost choose 

to stand 
Amid the great ones of the days gone by. 
Oh, blest and glorious lot, always to be 
With dreams of beauty compassed round 

about ! 
The godlike mother and the child divine, 
Or land or sea or sky, in calm or storm, 
Nature's sincerest verities of form — 
To see from canvas or from marble shine, 
Little by little orbing gradually. 
Some trace of hidden Godhead gleaming out ! 

Or who, from heart and brain inspired, create? 
Defying time, defying fate, 
Some deathless theme, and high, 
Some verse which cannot die, 
Some lesson which shall still be saia 
Altho' their tongue be lost and dead; 
Or who, in daily labor's trivial round, 
Their fitting work have found; 
Or who on high, guiding the car of State, 
Are set, a people's envy and their pride, 
\Mio, spurning rank and ease and wealth, 
And setting pleasure aside and health, 
And meeting contumely oft and hate. 
Have lived laborious lives and all too early 
died. 

Or shall I silence keep 

Of you, oh ministering women fair. 

Who, while the world lies sunk in careless 

sleep. 
Still for the love of God and man can bear 
To watch by alien sickbeds, and to guard 
With little hope and scant reward, 
'Midst misery and foul infected air, . 
The friendless and the dying? Shall I dare 
To sing of labor's meed, nor hold you dear ? 
Dear souls, your joys are great, and yet not 

wholly here ; 
In heaven they blossom best and grow com- 
plete, 



And beautiful upon the eternal mountains 
are your feet. 

Ay, labor, thou art blest. 

From all the earth thy voice, a constant prayer, 

Soars upward day and night : 

A voice of aspiration after right; 

A voice of effort yearning for its rest; 

A voice of high hope conquering despair? 



13 



ODE OF REST. 

THEEE is a joy in rest; 
There is a joy to cease and to be still. 
This is the remedy of all the best, 
To cure the pain of too laborious will. 
Ah ! it is sweet to lie reclined. 
Reaping the fallow mind, 
WTien all the sweat and drougth of day is done, 
And a cool breeze breathes from the setting 



Tlie toiler sits before his cottage door, 
Set with musk-roses round, and eglantine, 
In dew^^, scented, twilight-glooms divine, 
WTien all the trouble of the week is o'er. 
And sabbath rest comes with the evening sun : 
The joyous shouts come up from pool or 

green; 
Round the white chestnut-spikes the beetles 

hum ; 
And down the hawthorn-haunted by-ways 

come 
The loitering lovers, hardly seen 
Till springs aloft the clear large moon 
Of pleasant June. 

Or by the palm-thatched hut at shut of eve, 

The dusky toilers he, when the red sun 

Is sinking or has gone. 

A cool wind rises landward from the sea; 

The fire-flies glance like silver in the palm ; 

On the fringed shore the thundering rollers 

heave ; 
And all the simple souls are full of glee, 
And the fair earth of calm. 
Or on the hot and trackless sand. 
In the sweet dying day, 

Beyond the unknown monuments of the dead, 
The last muezzin calls, the prayers are said, 
And turbaned faces stern relax awhile 
To some unwonted smile. 
Watching the large-eyed children at their play. 



ODE OF REST. 

Or maybe busy brains, which day by day And on the wine-dar'^ sea-depths looking 

Life's struggle frets away, down, 

Weary with fierce pursuit of fame or wealth. High based on wave-worn fronts, the marble 

And prizing only health ; shrine ; 

Over the joyous wave in some swift boat, Or see the white town flush with dying day, 

"White-T\dnged, delight to float And the red mountain fire the glimmering 

From land to land upon the tideless sea ; bay. 

Borne careless still and free 

By hoary cape and gleaming southern to^m, Or maybe on the icy hill they creep 

And many an islet clothed with palm and vine, Above the pines, across the h-ozen sea. 




Whose blue abysses bare the unfathomed On the white summit panting but content, 

deep; With full hearts throbbing high and forces 
Each to the other bound, and silently, spent. 

Fearful lest some chance step or spoken word. At last the climbers stand ; 

The avalanche trembling to its fall have For this of old is sure, 

stirred; That change of toil is toil's sufficient cure. 
And up the giddy height 

Little by little, gaining slow. Or by the lovely classic shore. 

They gradually go. The traveler sees with wondering eyes 

Till with hard toil of knee and hand, The treasure-house of art ; the store 

u 



ODE OF REST, 



Of gracious memories 
Left by some cunning vanished hand, 
At whose supreme command 
The spirit of beauty rose and did appear: 
The angel with the hly; the poor maid, 
Submissive, yet afraid ; 
The fair Madonnas mild ; 
The deep incfHible Child ; 
The sweet boy-angels singing high and clear ; 
The lady with the mystic smile ; 
The kneeling Magi from the fabled East; 
The blessed Presence at the sacred feast; 
i And many a virgin martyr sweet. 
And many a youthful saint, 
Gazing from heavenly eyes and free of guile ; 
Wlio, when the tortured life began to faint. 
Looking in agony above. 
Saw the heavens opened, and the Paraclete 
Descending like a dove. 

Or maybe under secular trees, 

Old when his ancestors were young, 

The statesman, in the golden autumn, sees 

New glories for the eloquent tongue, 

New triumphs gained against the banded 

might 
Of selfishness and fear, new struggles for the 

right; 
And in the falling evening and the sad 
Short light of waning daj'S, 
Illumes his soul with subtle inward rays, 
And grows sedately glad. 
These thy refreshments are, oh blest 
And necessary Rest ! 

Peaceful delights, which bear not soil and fret 
As do the victories of toil, and yet 
Bear their own fruit exceeding fair : 
Renewal of the laboring mind, 
New hopes, new dawns, and carking care 
A black night left behind. 



A 



GOOD NIGHT. 



GOD night, 

To each weary, toil-worn wiglitl 
Now the day so sweetly closes, 
Every aching brow reposes 
Peacefully till morning light. 
Good night I 

Home to rest I 
Close the eye and calm the l3reast; 
Stillness througK the streets is stealing, 



And tlio watchman's horn is pealing, 
And the night calls softly, " Haste \ 
Home to rest!" 

Sweetly sleep ! 
Eden's breezes round ye sweep. 
O'er the peace-forsaken lover 
Let the darling image hover, 
As he lies in transport deep. 
Sweetly sleep ! 

So, good night ! 
Slumber on till morning light; 
Slumber till another morrow 
Brings its stores of joy and sorrow; 
Fearless, in the Father's sight, 
Slumber on. Good night ! 

From the German of Korner. Transiatiofl 
of Charles T. Brooks. 



NEVER DESPAIR. 



THE opal-hued and many-perfumed morn 
From gloom is born; 
From out the sullen depth of ebon Night 

The stars shed light ; 
Gems in the rayless caverns of the earth 

Have their slow birth ; 
From wondrous alchemy of winter hours 

Come summer flowers ; 
The bitter waters of the restless main 

Give gentle rain ; 
The fading bloom and dry seed bring once 
more 

The year's fresh store ; 
Just sequences of clashing tones afford 

The full accord ; 
Through weary ages, full of strife and ruth, 

Thought reaches Trutli ; 
Through efforts, long in vain, i)rophetic need 

Begets the deed ; 
Nerve then thy soul with direst need to cope; 

Life's brighest hope 
Lies latent in Fate's deadhest lair — 

Never despair ! 



Labor is the true alchemist which heats 
out in patient transmutation the })aser 
metals into gold. 

W. MORLEY PUN'S HON, LL.D, 



15 




THE HOUR OF REST. 



BENEATH the green impleached trees, 
Beside the stream I pass ; 
I hear the bird upon the breeze, 
The breeze among the grass. 
Wliat is thy song, O breeze? O bird? 
O sweet bird, flying to thy nest? 
"Best to the weary world, 
Best! rest!" 



Sleep soon, O world, thy rest is brief! 

Sink soon, thou westering beam ! 
The stream is singing to the leaf, 

The leaf unto the stream. 
What is thy song, leaf ? stream? 
O grey stream flowing to the west? 
" Best to the weary world. 

Best! rest I" f. e. w 



16 



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THE VILLAGE TEAMSTER. 



THE FISHERMAN'S SONG. 



W WAY — away o'er the feathery crest 
11 Of the beautiful blue are we : 
i- 1 For our toil-lot lies on its boiling breast, 

A And our wealth's in the glorious sea ! 
And we've hymn'd in the grasp of the fiercest 
night. 
To the God of the sons of toil, 
As we cleft the wave by its own white light, 
And away with its scaly spoil. 

Then oh, for the long and the strong 
oar-sweep 
We have given, and will again ! 
For when children's weal lies in the 



And oh 'twere glorious, sure, to die, 

In our toils for some on shore. 
With a hopeful eye fix'd calm on the sky, 
And a hand on the broken oar. 

Then oh, for the long and the strong 
oar-sweep ! 
Hold to it! — hurrah !— dash on !, 
If our babes must fast till we rob the 
deep, 
It is time we had begun ! 

FRANCIS DAVISi 



Oh, their fathers must be men ! 

And we'll think, as the blast grows loud and 
long, 
That we hear our offspring's cries ; 
And we'll think, as the surge grows tall and 
strong, 
Of the tears in their mother's eyes : 
And we'll reel through the clutch of the 
shiv'ring green, 
For the warm, warm clasp at home — 
For the welcoming shriek of each heart's own 
queen. 
When her cheek's like the flying foam. 

Then oh, for the long and the strong 
oar-sweep 
We have given, and must again ! 
' But when white waves leap, and our 
pale wives weep, 
Heaven, — thy mercy then ! 

Do we yearn for the land when toss'd on this ? 

Let it ring to the proud one's tread! 
Far worse than the waters and winds may hiss 

Where the poor man gleans his bread. 
If the adder-tongue of the upstart knave 

Can bleed what it may not bend, 
Twere better to battle the wildest wave 
That the spirit of storms could send. 

Than be singing farewell ^o the bold 
oar-sweep 
We have given, and will again ; 
Though our souls should bow to the 
savage deep, 
Oh, they'll never to savage men! 

ind if Death, at times, through a foamy cloud, 
On the brown-l)row'd boatman glares, 

de can pay him his glance with a soul as proud 
As the form of a mortal bears ; 

2c 17 



? 



TRUE REST. 



WEET is the pleasure 
Itself cannot spoil I 
Is not true leisure 
One with true toil? 

Thou that wouldst taste it, 

Still do thy best; 
Use it, not waste it, — 

Else 'tis no rest. 

•Wouldst behold beauty 
Near thee? all round? 
Only hath duty 
Such a sight found. 

Rest is not quitting 

The busy career; 
Rest is the fitting 

Of self to its sphere. 

'Tis the brook's motion, 

Clear without strife, 
Fleeing to ocean 

After its life. 

Deeper devotion 

Nowhere hath knelt; 
FuUer emotion 

Heart never felt. 

*Tis loving and serving 
The highest and best ; 

'Tis onwards ! unswerving, — 
And that is true rest. 

JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 




LABOR IS WORSHIP. 



AUSE not to dream of the future before us; 

Pause not to weep the wild cares that come o'er us ; 
Hark, how Creation's deep, musical chorus, 
Unintermitting, goes up into heaven ! 
Never the ocean wave falters in flowing ; 
Never the little seed stops in its grovring ; 
More and more richly the rose-heart keeps glowing. 
Till from its nourishing stem it is riven. 

" Labor is worship ! '' — the robin is singing ; 
" Labor is worship ! " — the wild bee is ringing ; 
Listen ! that eloquent whisper upspringing 

Speaks to thy soul from out Nature's great heart. 
From the dark cloud flows the life-giving shower ; 
From the rough sod blows the soft-breathing flower ; 
From the small insect, the rich coral bower ; 

Only Tfian, in the plan, ever shrinks from his part. 

Labor is life ! 'Tis the still water faileth ; 

Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth ; 

Keep the watch wound, for the dark rust assaileth ; 

Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon. 
Labor is glory ! — the flying cloud lightens ; 
Only the waving wing changes and brightens ; 
Idle hearts only the dark future frightens ; 

Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune. 

Labor is rest from the sorrows that greet us, 
Rest from all petty vexations that meet us, 
Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us. 

Rest from world-sirens that lure us to ill. 
Work — and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow ; 
Work — thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow ; 
Lie not down wearied 'neath Woe's weeping- willow; 

Work with a stout heart and resolute will ! 

Labor is health ! Lo, the husbandman reaping, 
How through his veins goes the life current leaping I 
How his strong arm, in its stalwart pride sweeping, 

True as a sunbeam the swift sickle guides. 
Labor is wealth ! In the sea the pearl groweth ; 
Rich the queen's robe from the frail cocoon floweth \ 
From the fine acorn the strong forest bloweth ; 

Temple and statue the marble block hides. 

18 



LABOR IS WORSHIP. 



Droop not, though shame, sin, and anguish are round thee; 
Bravely fling oif the cold chain that hath bound thee ! 
Look to yon pure heaven smiling beyond thee; 

Rest not content in thy darkness — a clod. 
Work for some good, be it ever so slowly ; 
Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly ; 
Labor ! all labor is noble and holy ; 

Let thy great deeds be thy prayer to thy God. 



FRANCES S. OSGOOD^ 



PRESS ON 




RESS on ! there's no such word as fail ! 

Press nobly on! the goal is near; 
Ascend the mountain ! breast the gale ! 

Look upward, onward ; never fear ! 
Why shouldst thou faint ? Heaven smiles above, 

Though storm and vapor intervene ; 
That sun shines on, whose name is Love, 

Serenely o'er life's shadow'd scene. 



Press on ! surmount the rocky steeps ; 

Climb boldly o'er the torrent's arch : 
He fails alone who feebly creeps ; 

He wins who dares the hero's march. 
Be thou a hero ! let thy might 

Tramp on eternal snows its way. 
And through the ebon walls of night 

Hew down a passage unto day. 

Press on ! if once or twice thy feet 

Slip back and stumble, harder try : 
From him who never dreads to meet 

Danger and death, they're sure to fly. 
To coward ranks the bullet speeds ; 

While, on their breasts who never quail. 
Gleams, guardian of chivalric deeds, 

Bright courage, like a coat of mail. 

Press on ! if Fortune play thee false 
To-day, to morrow she'll be true: 

Whom now slie sinks she now exalts, 
Taking old gifts and granting new. 

The wisdom of the present hour 



Makes up for follies past and gone ; 
To weakness strength succeeds, and power 
From frailty springs: — press on! press 
on! 

Press on ! what though upon the ground 

Thy love has been poured out like rain? 
That happiness is always found 

The sweetest which is born of pain. 
Oft 'mid the forest's deepest glooms 

A bird sings from some blighted tree; 
And in the dreariest desert blooms 

A never-dying rose for thee. 

Therefore, press on! and reach the goal, 

And gain the prize, and wear the crown I 
^ aint not! for to the steadfast soul 

Come wealth and honor and renown. 
To thine own self be true, and keep 

Thy mind from sloth, thy heart from 
soil: 
Press on ! and thou shalt surely reap 

A heavenly harvest for thy toil. 

PARK BENJAMIN. 



Not only strike while the iron is liot, but make it hot by striking: 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 



J9 



^t V^ORK. 




^HERE is a perennial nobleness, 
and even sacredness, in work. 
Were he never so benighted, 
forgetful of his high calling, 
there is always hope in a man 
that actually and earnestly 
works ; in idleness alone is there perpetual 
despair. Work, never so Mammonish, 
mean, is in communication with Nature : 
the real desire to get work done will itself 
lead one more and more to truth, to Na- 
ture's appointments and regulations which 
are truth. 

Blessed is he who has found his work ; 
let him ask no other blessedness. He has 
a work, a life-purpose ; he has found it, 
and will follow it ! How, as a free flow- 
ing channel, dug and torn by noble force 
through the sour mud-swamp of one's 
existence, like an ever-deepening river 
there, it runs and flows ! — draining off the 
sour festering water gradually from the root 
of the remotest grass blade ; making, in- 
stead of pestilential swamp, a green fruit- 
ful meadow with its clear flowing stream. 
How blessed for the meadow itself, let the 
stream and its value be great or small ! 

Labor is life ; from the inmost heart of 
the worker rises his God-given force, the 
sacred celestial life-essence, breathed into 
him by Almighty God ; from his inmost 
heart awakens him to all nobleness, to all 
knowledge, "self-knowledge," and much 
else, so soon as work fitly begins. Knowl- 
edge ! the knowledge that will hold good 
in working, cleave thou to that ; for Nature 
herself accredits that, says Yea to that. 
Properly, thou hast no other knowledge 
but what thou hast got by working : the 
rest is yet all a hypothesis of knowledge ; 
a thing to be argued of in schools, a thing 
floating in the clouds in endless logic 
vortices, till we try it and fix it. " Doubt, 
of whatever kind, can be ended by action 
alone." 

Older than all preached gospels was this 
unpreachedj inarticulate, but ineradicable, 



for-ever-enduring gospel : work, and there- 
in have well-being. Man, Son of Earth 
and of Heaven, lies there not, in the inner- 
most heart of thee, a spirit of active meth- 
od, a force for work; — and burns like a 
painfully smoldering fire, giving thee no 
rest till thou unfold it, till thou write it 
down in beneficent facts around thee! 
What is immethodic, waste, thou shalt 
make methodic regulated, arable, obedient 
and productive to thee. Wheresoever thou 
findest disorder, there is thy eternal ene- 
my : attack him swiftly, subdue him ; 
make order of him, the subject not of 
chaos, but of intelligence, divinity, and 
thee ! The thistle that grows in thy path, 
dig it out that a blade of useful grass, a 
drop of nourishing milk, may grow there 
instead. The waste cotton-shrub, gather 
its waste white down, spin it, weave it; 
that, in place of idle litter, there may be 
folded webs, and the naked skin of man 
be covered. 

But, above all, where thou findest 
ignorance, stupidity, brute-mindedness — 
attack it, I say ; smite it wisely, unwear- 
iedly, and rest not while thou livest and 
it lives ; but smite, smite in the name of 
God ! The highest God, as I understand 
it, does audibly so command thee; still 
audibly, if thou have ears to hear. He, 
even He, with his unspoken voice, is ful- 
ler than any Sinai thunders, or syllabled 
speech of whirlwinds ; for the silence of 
deep eternities, of worlds from beyond 
the morning stars, does it not speak to 
thee? The unborn ages ; the old graves, 
with their long-moldering dust, the very 
tears that wetted it, now all dry — do not 
these speak to thee what ear hath not 
heard ? The deep death-kingdoms,the stars 
in their never-resting courses, all space and 
all time, proclaim it to thee in continual 
silent admonition. Thou, too, if ever man 
should, shalt work while it is called to- 
day ; for the night cometh, wherein no 
man can work. 



20 



WORK. 



All true work is sacred ; in all true 
work, were it but true hand-labor, there 
is something of divineness. Labor, wide 
as the earth, has its summit in heaven. 
Sweat of the brow ; and up from that to 
sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart ; 
which includes all Kepler calculations, 
Newton meditations, all sciences, all 
spoken epics, all acted heroism, martyr- 
doms — up to that "agony of bloody 
sweat," which all men have called divine ! 
brother, if this is not "worship," then I 
say, the more pity for worship ; for this is 
the noblest thing yet discovered under 
God's sky. 

Who art thou that complainest of thy 
life of toil ? Complain not. Look up, 
my wearied brother ; see thy fellow- work- 
men there, in God's eternity; surviving 
there, they alone surviving : sacred band 
of the immortals, celestial body-guard of 
empire of mind. Even in the weak 
human memory they survive so long, 
as saints, as heroes, as gods ; they alone 
surviving: peopling, they alone the im- 
measured solitudes of Time ! To thee 
Heaven, though severe, is not unkind; 
Heaven is kind — as a noble mother ; as 
that Spartan mother, saying while she 
gave her son his shield, " With it, my son, 
OR UPON it!" Thou, too, shalt return 
home^ in honor to thy far-distant home, in 
honor ; doubt it not — if in the battle thou 
keep thy shield ! Thou, in the eternities 
and deepest death-kingdoms, art not an 



alien; thou everywhere art a denizen! 
Complain not; the very Spartans did not 
co77iplain. 

The only happiness a brave man ever 
troubled himself with asking much about, 
was happiness enough to get his work 
done. Not, I can't eat^ but I can't work^ 
that was the burden of all wise complain- 
ing among men. It is after all, the one 
unhappiness of a man that he cannot 
work, that he cannot get his destiny, as a 
man, fulfilled. Behold the day is passing 
swiftly over, our hfe is passing swiftly 
over, and the night cometh, when no 
man can work. The night once come, 
our happiness, our unhappiness, it is all 
abolished, vanished, clean gone, a thing 
that has been. But our work, behold that 
is not abolished, that has not vanished; 
our work, behold it remains, or the 
want of it remains ; for endless time 
and eternity remains, and that is the 
sole question with us forever more ! 
Brief, brawling day, with its noisy phan- 
tasms, its poor, paper crowns, tinsel gilt, 
is gone ! and divine, everlasting night, 
with her star diadems, with her silences, 
and her veracities, is come ! What hast 
thou done, and how ? Happiness, unhap- 
piness, all that was but the wages thou 
hadst ; thou hast spent all that in sus- 
taining thj^selfhitherward, not a coin of 
it remains with thee, it is all spent, eaten; 
and now thy work, where is thy work ? 
Swift, out with thy work ! 

THOMAS CARLYLE. 




N sordid Avarice various evils wait, 
And gold, false, glittering, is the tempting bait. 
Oh cursed gold ! in whom our woes combine. 
Why dost thou thus with pleasing ruin sliine ? 
Cause of the parents' curse, of brethreuV strife, 
Wars, murders, all miseries of life. 



21 



WORK AWAY. 



WORK away! 
For the master's eye is on us. 
Never off us, still upon us^ 
Night and day. 
Work away ! 
Keep the busy fingers plying, 
Keep the ceaseless shuttles flying; 
See that never thread lie wrong ; 
Let not clash or clatter round us, 
Sound of whirring wheels confound us ; 
Steady hand ! let woof be strong 
And firm, that has to last so long ! 
A^^ork away ! 

Keep upon the anvil ringing 
Stroke of hammer ; on the gloom 
Set 'twixt cradle and 'twixt tomb 
Shower of fiery sparkles flinging ; 
Keep the mighty furnace glowing ; 
Keep the red ore hissing, flowing 
Swift within the ready mould ; 
See that each one than the old 
Still be fitter, still be fairer 
For the servant's use, and rarer 
For the master to behold : 
Work away ! 

Work away ! 
For the leader's eye is on us 
Never off us, still upon us. 

Night and day. 
Wide the trackless prairies round us. 
Dark and unsunned woods surround us 
Deep and savage mountains bound us ; 

Far away 
Smile the soft savannas green. 
Rivers sweep and roll between ; 

"N^'ork away ! 

Bring your axes, woodmen true ; 
Smite the forest till the blue 
Of heaven's sunny eye looks through 
Every wild and tangled glade ; 
Jungled swamp and thicket shade 

Give to-day ! 
O'er the torrent fling your bridges, 
Pioneers ! Upon the ridges 
Widen, smooth the rocky stair — 
They that follow, far behind 



Coming £„ftfer us, will finxx 
Surely easier footing there ; 
Reart to heart, and hand to hand', 
From the dawn to dusk o' day, 

Work away ! 
Scouts upon the mountain's peak— 
Ye that see the Promised Land, 
Hearten us ! for ye can speak 
Of the country \^e have scanned, 

Far away ! 

Work away. 
For the Father's eye is on us, 
Never off us, still upon us. 

Night and day. 

Work and pray ! 
Pray ! and work will be completer ; 
Work ! and prayer will be the sweeter ; 
Love ! and prayer and love the fleeter 

Will ascend upon their way. 
Fear not lest the busy finger 
Weave a net the soul to stay : 
Give her wings — she will not linger ; 
Soaring to the source of day ; 
Cleaving clouds that still di-\dde us 
From the azure depths of rest. 
She will come again ! beside us. 
With the sunshine on her breast. 
Sit, and sing to us, while quickest 
On their task the fingers move, 
While the outward din wars thickest, 
Songs that she hath learned above. 

Live in Future as in Present ; 
Work for both while yet the day 
Is our own ! for lord and peasant. 
Long and bright as summer's day, 
Cometh, yet more sure, more pleasant, 
Cometh soon our holiday; 
Work away ! 



DUTY. 

1 SLEPT and dreamed that life waa 
Beauty : 
I woke and found that life was Duty: 
Was then my dream a shadowy lie? 
Toil on, sad heart, courageously. 
And thou shalt find thy dream to be 
A noonday light and truth to thee. 



22 




YOUR MISSION, 



AKK, the voice of Jesus 
crying,— 
" Who will go and T/ork 
to-day ? 
Fields are white and har- 
vest waiting ! 
Who will bear the 
sheaves away ? " 
Loud and strong the Mas- 
ter calleth, 
Rich reward he offers thee : 
Who will answer, gladly saying, 
" Here am I ; send me, send me I" 

If you cannot cross the ocean, 

And the heathen lands explore; 
You can find the heathen nearer, 

You can help them at your door. 
If you cannot give your thousands, 

You can give the widow's mite ; 
And the least you do for Jesus, 

Will be precious in his sight. 

If you cannot speak like angels; 

If you cannot preach like Paul • 
You can tell the love of Jesus, 

You can say He died for all. 
If you cannot rouse the wicked 

With the judgment's dread alarms. 
You can lead the little children 

To the Saviour's waiting arms. 

If you cannot be the watchman 

Standing high on Zion's wall, 
Pointing out the path to heaven. 

Offering life and peace to all ; 
With your prayers and with your bounties 

You can do what heaven demands ; 
You can be like faithful Aaron, 

Holding up the prophet's hands. 

If among the older people, 

You may not be apt to teach ; 
*' Feed my lambs," said Christ, our Shepherd, 

" Place the food within their reach," 
And it may be that the children 

You have led with trembling hand 
Will be found among your jewels 

When you reach the better land. 

Let none hear you idly saying, 
*' There is nothing I can do," 
While the souls of men are dying, 



And the Master calls for you. 
Take the task he gives you gladly; 

Let his work your pleasure be; 
Answer quickly when he calleth, 

" Here am I ; send me, send me ! " 

DANIEL MARCH, D,D« 




INDUSTRY. 

|HE way to wealth is as plain as the 
way to market. It depends chief- 
ly on two words, industry and fru- 
gality; that is, waste neither time nor 
money, but make the best use of both. 
Without industry and frugality, nothing 
will do, and with them everything. 

Sloth makes all things difficult, but in- 
dustry all easy; and he that riseth late 
must trot all day, and shall scarce over- 
take his business at night, while laziness 
travels so slowly that poverty soon over- 
takes him. 

Industry need not wish, and he that 
lives upon hopes will die fasting. There 
are no gains without pains ; then help, 
hands, for I have no lands : or if I have, 
they are smartly taxed. He that hath a 
trade hath an estate, and he that hath a 
calling, hath an office of profit and honor, 
but then the trade must be worked at, and 
the calling followed, or neither the estate 
nor the office will enable us to pay our 
taxes. If we are industrious, we shal] 
never starve; for, at the working-man's 
house, hunger looks in, but dares not en- 
ter. Nor will the bailiff or the constable 
enter, for industry pays debts, while de- 
spair increaseth them. 

Employ thy time well, if thou meanest 
to gain leisure; and since thou art not 
sure of a minute, throw not away an hour. 
Leisure is time for doing something use- 
ful; this leisure the diligent man will 
obtain, but the lazy man never ; for a life 
of leisure and a life of laziness are two 
things. 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 



23 



THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR. 




OME, see the Dolphin's anchor forged ! 'tis at a white heat now — 
The bellows ceased, the flames decreased, though, on the forge's brow, 
The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound. 
And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round. 
All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare, 
Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass there. 

The windlass strains the tackle-chains, — the black mould heaves below, 
And red and deep, a hundred veins burst out at every throe. 

It rises, roars, rends all outright, — O Vulcan, what a glow ! 

'Tis blinding white, 'tis blasting bright, — the high sun shines not so ! 

The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery fearful show. 

The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy lurid row 

Of smiths, that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe, 

Asj quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster slow 

Sinks on the anvil ; all about, the faces fiery grow : 

" Hurrah ! " they shout, " leap out, leap out ! " bang, bang ! the sledges go ; 

Hurrah ! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low, 

A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow ; 

The leathern mail rebounds the hail, the rattling cinders strow 

The ground around ; at every bound the sweltering fountains flow; 

And, thick and loud, the swinking crowd at every stroke pant ^^ Ho ! " 

Leap out, leap out, my masters ! leap out, and lay on load ; 

Let's forge a goodly anchor — a bower thick and broad, 

For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode, 

And I see the good ship riding, all in a perilous road, 

The low reef roaring on her lee, the roll of ocean pour'd 

From stem to stern, sea after sea ; the mainmast by the board ; 

The bulwarks down, the rudder gone, the boats stove at the chains ; 

But courage still, brave mariners, the bower yet remains ! 

And not an inch to flinch he deigns, save when ye pitch sky-high ; 

Then moves his head, as though he said, " Fear nothing, here am I ! '' 

Swing in your strokes in order ; let foot and hand keep time ; 
Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime. 
But while ye swing your sledges, sing, and let the burthen be, 
The anchor is the anvil king, and royal craftsmen we! 
Strike in, strike in ! — the sparks begin to dull their rustling red ; 
Our hammers ring with sharper din — our work will soon be sped; 
Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array 
For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of clay ; 
Our anchor soon must change the lay of merry craftsmen here 
For the yeo-heave-o and the heave away, and the sighing seamen's cheer— 

24 



THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR, 

When, weighing slow, at eve they go, far, far from love and home; 
And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, Avail o'er the ocean foam. 

Tn livid and obdnrate gloom, he darkens down at last; 

A shapely one he is, and strong, as e'er from cat was cast. 

O trusted and trustworthy guard ! if thou hadst life like me, 

AYhat pleasures AA-ould thy toils reward beneath the deep green sea! 

O deep sea-diver, avIio might then behold such sights as thou? — 

The hoary mon-tcr's palaces ! — Methinks what joy 'twere now 

To go ])lumb-plunging down, amid the assembly of the whales, 

And feel the churn'd sea round me boil beneath their scourging tails! 

Thf'n deep in tangle-AVOods to fight the fierce sea-unicorn, 

Ai:d send him foil'd and bellowing back, for all his ivory horn; 

To leave (he subtle sworder-fish of bony blade forlorn ; 
And for the ghastly-grinning shark, to laugh his jaws to scorn; 
To leap down on the kraken's back, where ^mid Norwegian isles, 
He lies, a lubber anchorage for sudden shallow'd miles — 
Till, snorting like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls; 
Meanwhile to swing, a-buffeting the far astonish'd shoals 
Of his back-browsing ocean calves; or, haply, in a cove 
Shell-strown, and consecrate of old to some Undine's love. 
To find the long-hair'd mermaidens ; or, hard by icj^ lands. 
To Avrestle Avith the sea-serpent, uj^on cerulean sands. 

O broad-armed fisher of the deep ! Avhose sports can equal thine? 
The dolphin weighs a thousand tons that tugs thy cable line; 
And night by night 'tis thy delight, thy glory day by day, 
Through sable sea and breaker white the giant game to play. 
But, shamer of our little sports! forgive the name I gave: 
A fisher's joy is to de-troy — thine office is to save. 
O lodger in the sea-king's halls! couldst thou but understand 
Whose be the Avhite bones by thy side — or Avho that dripping band, 
SloAV SAA^aying in the heaving wave, that round about thee bend, 
With sounds like breakers in a dream blessing their ancient friend — 
Oh, couldst thou kno'v AA^iat heroes glide Avith larger steps round thee, 
Thine iron side Avould swell Avitli pride — thou'dst leap within \\\q sec I 

Giv^e honor to their memories Avho left the pleasant strand 

To shed their blood so freely for the love of fatherland — 

AVho left their chance of quiet age and grassy churchyard grave 

So freely, for a restless bed amid the tossing wave! 

Oh, though our anchor may not be all I have fondly sung, 

Honor him for their memory whose bones lie goes among! 

SAMUEL FERGUSON. 

21c 25 






■^H 




TO SLEEP, 

A SONNET. 

By William Wordsworth. 

FLOCK of sheep that leisurely pass by. 
One after one ; the sound of rain, 

and bees 
Murmuring ; the fall of rivers, winds, 
and seas. 

Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky. 
I've thought of all by turns ; and still I lie 
Sleepless ; and soon the small birds' melodies 
Must' hear,"^ first utter'd from my orchard trees ; 
And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry. 
Even thus last night, and two flights more, I lay, 
And could not win thee, Sleep, by any stealth. ; 
So do not let me wear to-night away ; 

Without thee what is all the morning's wealth ? 
Come, blessed barrier betwixt day and day. 
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health! 





HARVEST HOME. 



|0^^'' in the morn thy seed, 

At eve hold not thy hand; 
To douht and fear give thou no heed; 
Broadcast it o'er the land. 

Beside all waters sow, 

Tlic highway furrows stock ; 
Drop it where thorns and thistles grow, 

Scatter it on the rock. 

The good, the fruitful ground, 

Expect not everywhere ; 
O'er hill and dale, by plot*!, 'tis found; 

Go forth, then, everywhere. 

Thou knowest not which may thrive, 
The late, or early sown ; 



Grace keeps the precious germ alive, 
When, and wherever stroA-n. 

And duly shall appear, 

In verdure, beauty, strength. 
The tender blade, the stalk, the ear, 

And the full corn at length. 

Thou canst not toil in vain ; 

Cold, heat and moist and dry, 
Shall foster and mature the grain 

For garners in the sky. 

Hence, when the glorious end, 

The day of God is come, 
The angel reapers shall descend 

And heaven cry "Harvest Home." 

JAS. MONTUOMERY. 



27 



THE PLOUGHMAN 




f^LEAR the brown patli to meet his coulter's gleam J 
Gf^C Lo ! on he comes, behind his smoking team, 

h With toil's bright dewdrops on his sun-burnt brow, 
The lord of earth, the hero of the plough ! 

First in the field before the reddening sun, 
Last in the shadows when the day is done, 
Line after line, along the bursting sod, 
Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod ; 
Still where he treads the stubborn clods divide, 
The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide ; 
Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves. 
Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves ; 
Up the steep hillside, where the laboring train 
Slants the long track that scores the level plain. 
Through the moist valley, clogg'd with oozing clay, 
The patient convoy breaks its destined way ; 
At every turn the loosening chains resound. 
The swinging ploughshare circles glistening round, 
Till the wide field one billowy waste appears, 
And Avearied hands unbind the panting steers. 

These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings 
The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings; 
This is the page Avhose letters shall be seen 
Changed by the sun to words of living green ; 
This is the scholar whose immortal pen 
Spells the first lesson hunger taught to men ; 
These are the lines that heaven-commanded Toil 
Shows on his deed, — the charter of the soil ! 

O gracious Mother, whose benignant breast 
Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest, 
How thy sweet features, kind to every clime. 
Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of Time ! 
We stain thy flowers, — they blossom o'er the dead; 
We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread ; 
O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn 
Waves the green plumage of thy tassell'd corn ; 
Our maddening conflicts scar thy fairest plain. 
Still thy soft answer is the growing grain. 
Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms 
Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms. 
Let not our virtues in thv love decay, 

29 



THE PLOUGHMAN. 

And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away. 
No ! by these hills whoso banners now displayed 
In blazing cohorts Autumn has arrayed ; 
By yon twin summits, on whose splintery crests 
The tossing hemlocks hold the (agles' nests; 
By these fair plains'the mountain circle screens, 
And feeds with streamlets from its dark ravines,— 
True to their home, these faithful arms shall toil 
To crown with peace their own untainted soil ; 
And, true to God, to freedom, to mankind. 
If her chained ban-dogs Faction shall unbind, 
These stately forms, that, bending even now, 
Bow'd their strong manhood to the humble plough, 
Shall rise erect, the guardians of the land. 
The same stern iron in the same right hand. 
Till o^er their hills the shouts of triumph run ; 
The sword has rescued what the ploughshare won ! 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 



REST AT EVENING. 




HEN the weariness of life is ended, 
And the task of our long day is done, 

And the props, on which our hearts depended, 
All have failed, or broken, one by one; 

Evening and our sorrow's shadow blended, 
Telling us that peace has now bfegun. 

How far back will seem the sun's first dawning, 

And those early mists so cold and gray I 
Half forgotten even the toil of morning. 
And the heat and burden of the day. 
Flowers that we were tending, and weeds scorning, 
All alike, withered and cast away. 

Vain will seem the impatient heart, that waited 
Toils that gathered but too quickly round ; 

And the childish joy, so soon elated 

At the path we thought none else had found; 

And the foolish ardor, soon abated 

By the storm which cast us to the ground. 

Vain those pauses on the road, each seeming All will then be faded : Night will borrow 



As our final home and resting-place; 
A.nd the leaving them, while tears were 
streaming 

Of eternal sorrow down our face ; 
A^nd the hands we held, fond folly dreaming 

That no future could their touch efiace. 



Stars of light to crown our perfect rest; 
And the dim vague memory of faint sorrow 

Just remain to show us all was best; 
Then melt into a divine to-morrow : 

O, how poor a day to be so blest ! 

ADELAIDE A. PROCTER. 



30 




-aNJcb 



RESTLESSNESS. 

( )WX in the harbor the ships he moored, 
Weary sea-birds with folded wing, — 
Anchors sunken and sails secured ; 
Yet on the water they rock and swing, 
Rock and swing, 
As though each keel were a living thing. 

Silence sleeps on the earth and air, 

Never a breath does the sea-breeze blow, 

Yet like living pendulums there, 
Down in the harbor, to and fro. 
To and fro, 

Backward and forward the vessels go. 



As a child on its mother's breast. 

Cradled in happy slumber, lies, 
Yet, half-conscious of joy and rest. 

Varies its breathing, and moves and sighs, 
Moves and sighs. 
Yet neither wakes nor opens its eyes. 

Or it may be, the vessels long — 

For almost human they seem to me — 
For the leaping waves, and the storm-wind 
strong. 
And the fetterless freedom out at sea. 
Out at sea, 
And feel their rest a captivity. 



So as a soul from a higher sphere. 
Fettered down to this earthly clay. 

Strives at the chains that bind it here, 
Tossing and struggling, day by day, 
Day by day. 

Longing to break them and flee away. 

Strive the ships in their restlessness. 
Whether the tide be high or low ; — 

And why these tear-drops, I cannot guess, 
As down in the harbor, to and fro, 
To and fro, 

Backward and forward the vessels go. 

ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN. 



THE DUTY OF LABOR. 




ABOR is man's great function. 
The earth and the atmosphere 
are his laboratory. With spade 
and plow, with mining shafts, 
and furnaces, and forges, with fire and 
steam, amid the noise and whirl of swift 
end bright machinery, and abroad in the 
silent fields, beneath the roofing sky, man 
was made to be ever working, ever experi- 
menting. And w^hile he and all his dw^ell- 
ings of care and toil are borne onward 
with the circling skies, and the sIioavs of 
heaven are around him, and their infinite 
depths image and invite his thought, still 
in all the worlds of philosophy, in the 
universe of intellect, man must be a worker. 
He is nothing, he can be nothing, he can 
achieve nothing, fulfill nothing, without 
, working. 

Not only can he gain no lofty improve- 
ment without this, but without it he can 



gain no- tolerable happiness. So that he 
who gives himself up to utter indolence 
finds it too hard for him, and is obliged in 
self-defense, unless he be an idiot, to do 
something. The miserable victims of idle- 
ness and ennui, driven at last from their 
chosen resort, are compelled to w^ork, to do 
something ; yes, to employ their wretched 
and worthless lives in — " killing time." 
They must hunt dow^n the hours as their 
prey. Yes, timie, that mere abstraction, 
that sinks light as the air upon the eye- 
lids of the busy and the weary, to the idle 
is an enemy, clothed with gigantic armor ; 
and they must kill it, or themselves die. 
They cannot live in mere idleness; and 
all the difierence between them and others 
is, that they employ their activity to nq 
useful end. They find, indeed, that the 
hardest work in the world is to do 
nothing. 

DEWEY. 



31 



THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF LABOR, 



THERE is dignity in toil — in toil of 
the hand as well as toil of the head 
— in toil to provide for the bodily 
wants of an individual life, as well 
as in toil to promote some enterprise of 
world-wide fame. All labor that tends 
to supply man's wants, to increase man's 
happiness, to elevate man's nature — in a 
word, all labor that is honest — is honorable 
too. Labor clears the forest, and drains 
the morass, and makes the *^ wilderness 
rejoice and blossom as the rose." Labor 
drives the plow, and scatters the seeds, 
and reaps the harvest, and grinds the corn, 
and converts it into bread, the staff of life. 
Labor, tending the pastures and sweeping 
the waters, as well as cultivating the soil, 
provides with daily sustenance the nine 
hundred millions of the family of man. 
Labor gathers the gossamer web of the 
caterpillar, the cotton from the field, and 
the fleece from the flock, and weaves it 
into raiment soft and warm and beautiful, 
the purple robe of the prince and the gray 
gown of the peasant being alike its handi- 
work. Labor moulds the brick, and splits 
the slate, and quarries the stone, and 
shapes the column, and rears not only the 
humble cottage, but the gorgeous palace, 
and the tapering spire, and the stately 
dome. Labor, diving deep into the solid 
earth, brings up its long-hidden stores of 
coal to feed ten thousand furnaces, and in 
millions of homes to defy the winter's cold. 
Labor explores the rich veins of deeply- 
buried rocks, extracting the gold and 
silver, the copper and tin. Labor smelts 
the iron, and moulds it into a thousand 
shapes for use and ornament, from the 
massive pillar to the tiniest needle, from 
the ponderous anchor to the wire gauze, 
from the mighty fly-wheel of the steam- 
engine to the polished purse-ring or the 
glittering bead. Labor hews down the 



gnarled oak, and shapes the timber, and 
builds the ship, and guides it over the 
deep, plunging through the billows, and 
wrestling with the tempest, to bear to our 
shores the produce of every clime. Labor, 
laughing at difficulties, spans majestic 
rivers, carries viaducts over marshy 
swamps, suspends bridges over deep 
ravines, pierces the solid mountain with 
the dark tunnel,^ blasting rocks and filling 
hollows^ and while linking together with 
its iron but loving grasp all nations of the 
earth, verifying, in a literal sense, the 
ancient prophecy, " Every valley shall be 
exalted, and every mountain and hill 
shall be brought low ; " labor draws forth 
its delicate iron thread, and stretching it 
from city to city, from province to prov- 
ince, through mountains and beneath the 
sea, realizes more than fancy ever fabled, 
while it constructs a chariot on which 
speech may outstrip the wind, and com- 
pete with lightning, for the telegraph flies 
as rapidly as thought itself. 

Labor, the mighty magician, walks 
forth into a region uninhabited and waste; 
he looks earnestly at the scene, so quiet in 
its desolation, then waving his wonder- 
working wand, those dreary valleys smile 
with golden harvests ; those barren moun- 
tain-slopes are clothed with foliage ; the 
furnace blazes ; the anvil rings ; the busy 
wheel whirls round ; the town appears; 
the temple of religion, rears its lofty 
front ; a forest of masts rises from the 
harbor. On every side are heard the 
sounds of industry and gladness. 

Labor achieves grander victories, it 
weaves more durable trophies, it holds 
wider sway, than the conqueror. His 
name becomes tainted and his monuments 
crumble; but labor converts his red battle- 
fields into gardens, and erects monuments 
significant of better things. 



32 




ARM-YARD SONG, 



OVER the hills the farm-boy goes, 
His shadow lengthened along the land, 
A giant staff in a giant hand ; 
In the poplar tree, above the spring. 
The katydid begins to sing ; 



Into the stone-heap darts the mink ; 
The swallows skim the river's brink ; 
And home to the woodland fly the crows. 
When over the hill the farm-boy goes, 
Cheerily calling, — 

" Co', boss ! co', boss ! co' ! co' ! co' ! " 
Farther, farther, over the hill. 
Faintly calling, calling still, — 

" Co', boss ! co', boss ! co' ! co' ! 



Into the yard the farmer goes, 

With grateful heart at the close of day ; 

Harness and chain are hung away ; 

In the wagon shed stand yoke and plough ; 

The straw's in the stack, the hay in the mow, 

The cooling dews are falling ; 
The friendly sheep his welcome bleat, 
The pigs come grunting to his feet. 
The whinnying mare her master knows. 
When into the yard the farmer goes, 
His cattle calling, — 

" Co', boss ! co', boss ! co' ! co' ! co' ! " 
While still the cow-boy, far away. 
Goes seeking those that have gone astray, — 

" Co', boss ! co', boss ! co' ! co' ! " 

Now to her task the milkmaid goes. 

The cattle come crowding through the gate, 

Lowing, pushing, little and great; 



The early dews are falling ; — 

About the trough, by the farm-yard pump, 
The frolicsome yearlings frisk and jump. 

While the pleasant dews are falling ; 
The new milch heifer is quick and shy. 
But the old cow waits with tranquil eye ; 
And the white stream into the bright pail flows, 
When to her task the milkmaid goes, 
Soothingly calling, — 

" So, boss ! so, boss ! so ! so ! so ! 
The cheerful milkmaid takes her stool. 
And sits and milks in the twilight cool. 

Saying, " So ! so, boss ! so ! so ! " 



To supper at last the farmer goes. 
The apples are pared, the pax)er read. 
The stories are told, then all to bed. 
Without, the cricket's ceaseless song 
Makes shrill the silence all night long ; 

The heavy dews are falling. 
The housewife's hand has turned the lock : 
Drowsily ticks the kitchen clock ; 
The household sinks to deep repose ; 
But still in sleep the farm-boy goes 
Singing, calling, — 

"Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'! 
And oft the milkmaid in her dreams 
Drums in the pail with the flashing streams, 

Murmuring, " So, boss 1 so ! " 

JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE. 



LABOR AND REST. 

TWO hands upon the breast. 
And labor's done ; 
Two pale feet crossed in rest, 
The race is run ; 
Tvvo eyes with coin-weights shut, 

And all tears cease ; 
Two lips where grief is mute, 

And wrath at peace ! — 
So pray we oftentimes, mourning our lot,- 
God in his mercy answereth not. 



Two hands to work addressed 

Aye for his praise ; 
Two feet that never rest, 

Walking his ways ; 
Two eyes that look above. 

Still through all tears ; 
Two lips that breathe but love, 

Nevermore fears. 
So pray we afterward low on our knees; — 

Pardon those erring prayers ! 
Father, hear these ! 

DINAH MARIA MULOCK. 



33 



TOIL AND BE GLAD. 



TOIL and be glad ! let industry inspire 
Unto your quickened limbs her buoyant 
breath ! 
Who does not act is dead ; absorbed entire 
In miry sloth, no pride, no joy he hath ; 
Oh, leaden-hearted men to be in love Avith 
death ! 

Ah ! what avail the largest gifts of Heaven 
When drooping health and spirits go amiss ! 

How tasteless then whatever can be given ! 
Health is the vital principle of bliss 

And exercise of health. In proof of this, 
Behold the wretch who slugs his life away. 

Soon swallowed in Disease's sad abyss, 
"V^Hiile he whom Toil has braced, or manly play 
Has light as air each limb, each thought as 
clear as day. 

O, who can speak the vigorous joys of 
health! 
Unclogged the body, unobscured the mind ; 

The morning rises gay, v.dth pleasing stealth. 
The temperate evening falls serene and kind. 
In health the wiser brutes true gladness 
find, 



See how the younglings frisk along the mec-^^ds, 
As May comes on and wakes the balmy 
wind ; 
Rampant with life, their joy all joy exceeds. 

Come, follow me; I will direct you right, 
Where pleasure's roses, void of serpv^nts, 
grow. 
Sincere as sweet : come, follow this good 

^ Knigl it. 
And you will bless the day that brought him 
to your sight. 

Some he will lead to courts, and some to 

camps, 
To senates some, and public sage debates, 
Where, by the solemn gleam of midnight 
lamps, 
The world is iioised, and managed mighty 
states ; 
To high discovery some, that new creates 
The face of earth ; some to the thriving m;irt : 

Some to the rural reign and softer fates ; 
To the sweet muses some, who raise the heart; 
All glory shall be yours, all Mature and all Art. 

JAMES TUOMSGN. 



WORKING AND WAITING. 



A HUSBANDMAN who many years 
Had ploughed his field and sown 
in tears, 
Grew weary with his doiibts and fears: 
" I toil in vain ! these rocks and sands 
Will yield no harvest to my hands ; 
The best seeds rot in barren lands. 
My drooping vine is withering ; 
No promised grajoes its blossoms bring : 
No birds among the branches sing ; 
My flock is dying on the plain; 
The heavens are brass — they yield no rain ; 
The earth is iron, — I toil in vain ! " 
While 3^et he spoke, a breath had stirred 
His drooping vine, like wing of bird. 
And from its leaves a voice he heard: 
" The germs and fruits of life must be 
Forever hid in mystery, 
Yet none can toil in vain for me. 



34 



A mightier hand more skilled than thine. 
Must hang the clusters on the vine, 
And make the fields with harvest shine. 
Man can but w^ork ; God can create : 
But they who work, and w^atch and wait, 
Have their reward, though it come late. 
Look up to heaven ! behold, and hear 
The clouds and thundcrin;.^-s in thy ear— 
An answer to thy doubts and fear." 
He looked, and lo ! a cloud-draped car, 
With trailing smoke rnd fi;:]ucs afar, 
Was rushing from a distant star; 
And every thirsty flock and plain 
Was rising up to meet the rain^ 
The covenant of God with men, 
BcAvritten with His rainbow pen: 
" Seed-time and harvest shall not fail. 
And though the gates of hell assail. 
My truth and promise shall prevail ! " 



THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH. 




NDER a spreading chestnut-tree 
The village smithy stands ; 
The smith, a mighty man is he, 
With large and sinewy hands ; 
And the muscles of his hrawny arms 
Are strong as iron bands. 

His hair is crisp and black and long; 

His fa ce is like the tan ; 
His brow is wet with honest sweat, — 

He earns whate'er he can, 
And looks the whole world in the face, 

For he owes not any man. 

Week in, week out, from noon till night, 
You can hear his bellows blow ; 

You can hear him swing his heavy sledge, 
With measured beat and slow, 

Like a sexton ringing the village bell, 
When the evening sun is low. 

And children coming home from school, 

Look in at the open door; 
They love to see the flaming forge. 

And hear the bellows roar. 
And catch the burning sparks that fly 

Like chaff from the threshing-floor. 

He goes on Sunday to the church, 

And sits among his boys : 
He hears the parson pray and preach ; 

He hears his daughter's voice. 
Singing in the \T.llage choir. 

And it makes his heart rejoice. 



It sounds to him like her mother's voice. 

Singing in Paradise ! 
He needs must think of her once more, 

How in the grave she lies; 
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes 

A tear out of his eyes. 

Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing, 
Onward through life he goes; 

Each morning sees some task begin. 
Each evening sees it close ; 

Something attempted, something done, 
Has earned a night's repose. 
35 



THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH, 

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, 

For the lesson thou hast taught! 
Thus at the flaming forge of life 

Our fortunes must be wrought; 
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped 

Each burning deed and thought! 

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 



LABOR SONG. 




Nothing 



From " The Bell-Foundee." 

H ! little they know of true happiness, they whom satiety fills, 

Who, flung on the rich breast of luxury, eat of the rankness that kills, 
Ah ! little they know of the blessedness toil-purchased slumber enjoys 
Who, stretched on the hard rack of indolence, taste of the sleep that 

destroys ; 
Nothing to hope for, or labor for ; nothing to sigh for or gain ; 
Nothing to light in its vividness, lightning-like, bosom and brain ; 
Nothing to break life's monotony, rippling it o'er with its breath ; — > 
but dullness and lethargy, weariness, sorrow, and death ! 



But blessed that child of humanity, happiest man among men. 

Who, with hammer or chisel or pencil, with rudder or ploughshare or pen, 

Laboreth ever and ever with hope through the morning of life. 

Winning home and its darling divinities, — love-worshipped children and wife. 

Kound swings the hammer of industry, quickly the sharp chisel rings. 

And the heart of the toiler has throbbings that stir not the bosom of kings, — 

He the true ruler and conqueror, he the true king of his race, 

Who nerveth his arm for life's combat, and looks the strong world in the face. 



DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY, 



5'^?i, 




The orchard big with bending fruit, 
From whose deep-loaded boughs a mellow show'r 
Incessant melts away. — Thomson. 



ir PPEOACHING Autumn, just begins to tinge 
M The leafy verdure with goklen fringe ; 
I Thro' the fair scenes unequal shades appear, 
That speak the downfall of the waning year: 
The promontory, topt with yellower pine, 
The tower, where wreaths of fading ivy twine ; 
Near the brown elm the berried hollies spread. 
And the last rose, that spots the copse with red ; 
The woodbine's feathery bloom, that, unconfineci. 
Mounts in the circles of the wasting wind; 
Wliile the changed oak in tawny beauty stands. 
Proud of his height, and all the grove commands. 

HOBHOUSfc. 



36 




0?^.^>^ THE MOWERS. 



:^ 




HE sunburnt mowers are in the swath- 
Swing, swing, swing ! 
The towering Ulies loath 
^ Tremble, and totter, and fall ; 

S5 The meadow-rue 

Dashes its tassels of golden dew ; 

And the keen blade sweeps o'er all- 
Swing, swing, swing ' 



The flowers, the berries, the plumed grass. 

Fall in a smothered mass ; 
Hastens away the butterfly ; 
With half their burden the brown bees hie ; 

And the meadow-lark shrieks distrest, 
And leaves the poor younglings all in the nest. 

Totters the Jacob's-ladder tall, 
And sadly nod 
The royal crowns of the golden-rod : — 

The keen blade moweth all ! 

Anon, the chiming whetstones ring — 

Ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling ! 

And the mower now 
Pauses and wipes his beaded brow. 
A moment he scans the fleckless sky, 
A moment, the fish-hawk soaring high, 
And watches the swallows dip and dive 

Anear and far ; 
They whisk and glimmer, and chatter and 
strive ; 
What do they gossip together ? 

Cunning fellows they are, — 

Wise prophets to hive ; 
*' Higher or lower they circle and skim, 
Fair or foul to-morrow's hay-weather ! " 
Tallest primroses or loftiest daisies 

Not a steel-blue feather 

Of slim wing grazes ! 
*' Fear not ! fear not ! " cry the swallows. 
Each mower tightens his snath-ring's wedge, 

And his finger daintly follows 

The long blade's tickle-edge; 
Softly the whetstone's last touches ring. 

Ting-a-ling, ting-orling ! 

*' Perchance the swallows, that flit in their glee, 
Of to-morrow's weather know little as we,'' 
Says Farmer Russet ; " 'tis hidden in shower 
Or sunshine ; to-morrow we do not own ; 

To-day is ours alone. 
Not a twinkle we'll waste of the golden hour. 
3c 



Grasp tightly the nibs, — give heel and give toe, 
Lay a goodly swath shaved smooth and lowl 

Prime is the day, — 

Swing, swing, swdng ! " 
(Farmer Russet is aged and gray, — 
Gray as the frost, but fi'esh as the spring ; 

Straight is he 

As a balsam-tree, 
And with heart most blithe and sinews lithe, 
He leads the row with his merry scythe). 
** Come, boys ! strike up the old song 

While we circle around, — • 
The song we always in hay-time sing ; 

And let the woods ring, 

And the echoes prolong 

The merry sound ! " 

SONG. 

June is too early for richest hay 

(Fair weather, fair weather) ; 

The corn stretches taller the livelong day, 

But grass is ever too sappy to lay 
(Clip all together) ; 

June is too early for richest hay. 

{Chorus.) 
O, we will make hay now while the sun 
shines — 
We'll waste not a golden minute ! 
The blue arch to-day no storm-shadow 
lines — 
We'll waste not a minute. 
For the west wind is fair ; 
0, the hay-day is rare ! 
The sky is without a brown cloud in it ! 

August's a month that too far goes by 

(Late weather, late weather) ; 
Grasshoppers are chipper and kick too high, 
And grass, that's standing, is fodder scorched 

dry 

(Pull altogether) ; 
August's a month that too far goes- by. 



37 



THE MOWERS. 



{Chorus.) 
Vuly is just in the nick of time ! 

(Best weather, best weather ;) 
The midsummer month is the golden prime 
For haycocks smelling of clover and thyme 

(Strike all together) ; 
July is just in the nick of time ! 
[Chorus.) 

Still hiss the scythes ! 
Shudder the grasses' defenceless blades — 

The lily-throng Avrithes : 
A.nd, as a phalanx of wild-geese streams 
Where the shore of April's cloud-land gleams 
On their dizzy way in serried grades, — ' 
Wing on wing, wing on wing, 
The. mowers, each a step in advance 
Of his fellow, time their stroke with a glance 

Of swerveless force ; 
And far through the meadow leads their 
course, — 

Swing, swing, swing ! 

MYRON BUELL BENTON. 



GRADATIM. 

HEAVEN is not reached at a single bound^ 
But we build the ladder by which we 
rise 

From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, 
And we mount to the summit round by round. 
I count this thing to be grandly true ; 

That a noble deed is a step toward God — 

Lifting the soul from the common sod 
To a purer air and a broader view. 
We rise by things that are under our feet ; 

By what we have mastered of good and gain; 

By pride deposed and passion slain. 
And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet. 
We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust. 

When the morniiig calls us to life and light; 

But our hearts grow weary, and ere the night; 
Our lives are trailing the sordid dust. 
We hope, we resolve, we aspire, we pray, 

And we think that we mount the air on 
Aviiigs 

Beyond the recall of sensual things, 
While our feet still cling to the heavy clay. 
Wings for the angels, but feet for the men ! 

We may borrow the wings to find the way — 

We may hope, and resolve, and aspire and 
pray ; 
But our feet must rise, or we fall again. 



Only in dreams is a ladder thrown 

From the weary earth to the sapphire walls ; 

But the dreams depart, and the vision falls, 
And the sleeper wakes on his pillow of stone. 

Heaven is not reached nt a single bound ; 
But we build the ladder by which we rise 
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, 

And we mount to the summit round bv round- • 



T. G. II OLL AND. 



MAKE YOUR MARK. 

(X the quarries should you toil, 
Make your mark : 
Do yon delve upon the soil, 
' Make your mark; 

In whatever path yon go, 

In whatever place yon stand, 
Moving swift or moving slow, 
With a firm and honest hand, 
Make your mark. 

Should opponents hedge your way, 

Make your mark ; 
Work by night or work by day, 

Make your mark ; 
Struggle manfully and w^ell. 

Let no obstacle oppose ; 
None, right-shielded, evw fell, 
By the w^eapons of his foes; 
Make your mark. 

What though born a peasant's son, 

Make your mark ; 
Good by poor men can be done. 

Make your mark ; 
Peasants' garbs may w^arm the cold, 
Peasants' words may calm a fear; 
Better far than hoarding gold. 
Is the drying of a tear ; 
Make your mark. 

Life is fleeting as a shade. 

Make your mark ; 
Marks of some kind must be made, 

Make your mark ; 
Make it while the arm is strong, 
In the golden hours of youth ; 
Never, never make it wrong, 
Make it with the stamp of truth ; 

Make your UKirk. 



PA^'ID BARKER. 



38 



OPPORTUNiTY FOR WORK. 




^^ 



XAMPLES of 

greatness and 
goodness before 
us bid us work 
and the chang- 
ing present offers 
ample oppor- 
tunity. Around 
us, everywhere, the new crowds aside 
the old. Improvement steps by seeming 
perfection. Discovery upsets theories and 
clouds over established systems. The 
usages of one generation become matters 
of tradition, for the amusement of the 
next. Innovation rises on the site of 
homes reverenced for early associations. 
Science can scarcely keep pace with the 
names of publications, qualifying or abro- 
gating the past. Machinery becomes old 
iron, as its upstart successor usurps its 
place. The new ship dashes scornfully 
by the naval prodigy of last year, and the 
steamer laughs at them both. The rail- 
road engine, as it rushes by the crumbling 
banks of the canal, screams out its 
mockery at the barge rotting piece-meal. 
The astronomer builds up his hypothesis, 
and is comforting himself among the 
nebulae, when invention comes to the res- 
cue ; the gigantic telescope points ujDward, 
and lo ! the raw material of which worlds 
are manufactured becomes the centres of 
systems blazing in the infinite heavens, 
and the defeated theorizer retreats into 
space, with his speculations, to be again 
routed, when human ingenuity shall admit 
us one hair-breadth further into creation. 
There is no effort of science or art that 
may not be exceeded ; no depth of pliilos- 
opliy that cannot be deeper sounded ; no 
flight of imagination that may not be 
parsed by strong and soaring wing. 

All nature is full of unknown things ; 
eaith air, water, the fathomless ocean, the 



limitless sky, lie almost untouched be- 
fore us. What has hitherto given pros- 
perity and distinction, has not been more 
open to others than to us ; to no one, past 
or present, more than to the student 
going forth from the school-room to-mor- 
row. 

Let not, then, the young man sit with 
folded hands, calling on Hercules. Thine 
own arm is the demigod. It was given 
thee to help thyself. Go forth into the 
world trustful, but fearless. Exalt thine 
adopted calling or profession. Look on 
labor as honorable, and dignify the task 
before thee, whether it be in the study, 
office, counting-room, work-shop, or fur- 
rowed field. There is an equality in all, 
and the resolute will and pure heart may 
ennoble either. george r. russell. 

HASTE NOT! REST NOT. 



WITHOUT haste ! without rest ! 
Bind the motto to thy breast ; 
Bear it with thee as a spell ; 
Storm or sunshine, guard it well ! 
Heed not flowers that round thee bloom, 
Bear it onward to the tomb ! 

Haste not ! Let no thoughtless deed 
Mar for aye the spirit's speed ! 
Ponder well, and know the right. 
Onward then, with all thy might ! 
Haste not ! years can ne'er atone 
For one reckless action done. 

Rest not ! Life is sweeping by, 
Go and dare before you die ; 
Something mighty and sublime 
Leave behind to conquer time ! 
Glorious 'tis to live for aye. 
When these forms have passed away. 

Haste not ! rest not ! calmly wait ; 
Meekly bear the storms of late I 
Duty be thy polar guide ; — 
Do the right, whate'er betide ! 
Haste not ! rest not ! conflicts past, 
God shall crown thy work at last. 

JO H ANN W. VON GOETHE. 



39 



WORKING UNDER DISADVANTAGES. 



^^cl^^HO shall reckon up the count- 
^^WiM less chcumstances which lie 
like a depressing burden on 
the energies of men, and make them work 
at that disadvantage which we have 
thought of under the figure of carrying 
weight in life ? There are men who carry- 
weight in a damp, marshy neighborhood, 
who, amid bracing mountain air, might 
have done things which now they will 
never do. There are men who carry- 
weight in an uncomfortable house : in 
smoky chimneys : in a study with a dis- 
mal look-out : in distance from a railway 
station : in ten miles between them and a 
bookseller's shop. Give another hundred 
a year of income, and the poor struggling 
parson who preaches dull sermons, will 
astonish you by the talent he will exhibit, 
when his mind is freed from the dismal, 
depressing influence of ceaseless scheming 
to keep the wolf from the door. Let the 
poor little sick child grow strong and well, 
and with how much better heart will its 
father face the work of life ! Let the 
clergyman, who preached in a spiritless 
enough way, to a handful of uneducated 
rustics, be placed in a charge where weekly 
he has to address a large cultivated con- 
gregation; and with the new stimulus, 
latent powers may manifest themselves 
which no one fancied he possessed, and 
he may prove quite an eloquent and 
attractive preacher. A dull, quiet man, 
whom 3^ou esteemed as a blockhead, may 
suddenly be valued very difierently when 
circumstances unexpectedly call out the 
solid qualities he possesses, unsusi^ected 
before. A man, devoid of brilliancy, may 
on occasion show that he possesses great 
good sense ; or that he has the power of 
sticking to his task, in spite of discourage- 
ment. Let a man be placed where dogged 
perseverance will stand him in stead, and 
you may see what he can do when he has 
but a chance. The especial weight which 
has held some men back — the thing which 



kept them from doing great things and 
attaining great fame — has been just this : 
that they were not able to say or to write 
what they have thought and felt. And 
indeed, a great poet is nothing more than 
the one man in a million who has the 
gift to express that which has been in the 
mind and heart of multitudes. If even 
the most commonplace of human beings 
could write all the poetry he has felt, he 
would produce something that would go 
straight to the hearts of many. 

COUNTRY PARSON. 



THE USEFUL PLOUGH. 



A COUNTRY life is sweet! 
In moderate cold and heat, 
To walk in the air, how pleasant and 

fair ! 

In every field of wheat, 
The fairest of flowers, adorning the bowers, 

And every meadow's brow ; 
So that I say, no courtier may 
Compare with them who clothe in gray, 

And follow the useful plough. 

They rise with the morning lark, 
And labor till almost dark ; 

Then folding their sheep, they hasten to 
sleep ; 
While every pleasant park 

Next morning is ringing with birds that are 
singing 
On each green, tender bough. 

With what content and merriment 

Their days are spent, whose minds are bent 
To follow the useful plow ! 



RKST. 



THERE are halting-places found in the 
most agitated or most unhappy life. 
Revolutions of Mind and Body, Pas- 
sions and Diseases, cannot go on without 
some moments of rest. Man is a being 
so weak that he can neither act nor sufier 
continuously ; were he not to halt a little 
now and then, his strength would be pre- 
maturely exhausted. 

ED. ABOUT, 



40 



WORK AND ITS ACHIEVEMENT. 




T IS in acnieve- 
ment that work 
throws off all its 
repulsive fea- 
tures, and as- 
sumes the form 
and functions 
of an angel. 
Before her, like 
a dissolving 
scene, the for- 
est lade;5, ^\ itli its ^\ ild beasts and its wild 
men, and under her hand smiling villages 
rise among the hills and on the plains, 
and yellow harvests spread the fields 
with gold. The city, with its docks and 
ware-houses, and churches and palaces, 
springs at her bidding into being. The 
trackless ocean mirrors her tireless pin- 
ions as she ransacks the climes for the food 
of commerce, or flames with the torches 
of her steamsped messengers. She binds 
states and marts and capitals together with 
bars of iron, that thunder with the ceaseless 
rush of life and trade. She pictures all scenes 
of beauty on canvas, and carves all forms 
of excellence in marble. Into huge libra- 
ries she pours the wealth of countless 
precious lives. She erects beautiful and 
convenient homes for men and women to 
dAvell in, and weaves the fibres which na- 
ture prepares into fabrics for their cover- 
ing and comfort. She rears great civili- 
zations that run like mountain-ranges 
through the level centuries, their summits 
sleeping among the clouds, or still flam- 
ing with the fire that fills tl>em, or looming 
grandly in the purple haze of history. 
Nature furnishes material, and work 
fashions it. By the hand of art, work 
selects, and moulds, and modifies, and re- 
combines that which it finds, and gives 
utterance and being to those compositions 
of matter and of thought which build for 
man a new world, with Bi)ecial adai)ta- 
tion to his desires, tastes and necessities. 



Man's record upon tliis wild world is the 
record of work, and of work alone. 

Work explores the secrets of the uni- 
verse, and bringp back those contributions 
which make up the sum of human know- 
ledge. It counts the ribs of the mountains 
and feels the j)ulses of the sea, and traces 
the foot-paths of the stars, and calls the 
animals of the forest and the birds of the 
air and the flowers of the field by name. 
It summons horses of fire and chariots of 
fire from heaven, and makes them the 
bearers of its thought. It plunders the 
tombs of dead nationalities, and weaves 
living histories from the shreds it finds. 
It seeks out and sets in order the secrets 
of the soil, and divides to every plant its 
food. It builds and binds into unity great 
philosophies, along which run the life and 
thought of ages. It embalms the life of 
nations in literatures, in whose crypts are 
scattered seeds of thought that only need 
the light to spread into harvests of bread 
for living generations. 

How wonderful a being is man, wher. 
viewed in the light of his achievements 
It is in the record of these that we find 
the evidence of his power and the creden- 
tials of his glory. Into the results of 
work each generation pours its life ; and 
as these results grow in excellence, with 
broader forms and rich«r tints and nobler 
meanings, they become the indexes of the 
world's progress. We estimate tlie life of a 
generation by what it does; and the re- 
sults of its work stand out in advance of 
its successor, to show it what it can do, 
and to show it what it must do, to 
reach a finer consummation. Thus the 
results of work become the most powerful 
stimulus of the worker*. They inspire 
emulation ; they instruct in mode and 
style; they feed i)erennially the springs 
of ambition. 

J. G. HOLLAND. 



41 



THE FARMER'S BOY, 



'fe, M LED now the sullen murmurs of the North, 

|^_ iX The splendid raiment of the spring peeps forth ; 

K~--^^ e^^-i^ Her universal green and the clear sky 
|Mjil^l?te2 I^elight still more and more the gazing eye. 
^fc[^^ :^ Wide o'er the fields, in rising moisture strong, 

W^^- ^li^k^ Shoots up the simple flower, or creeps along 
^4 ^ -^^SJ The mellowed soil, imbibing fairer hues 
^^^^0\£^^ Or sweets from frequent showers and evening dews 
^^^^v^>4' ' That summon from their sheds the slumbering plough? 

While health impregnates every breeze that blows. 

No wheels support the diving, pointed share ; 

No groaning ox is doomed to labor there ; 

No helpmates teach the docile steed his road 

(Alike unknown, the ploughboy and the goad) : 

But unassisted, through each toilsome day, 

"With smiling brow the ploughman cleaves his way, 

Draws his fresh parallels, and, widening still, 

Treads slow the heavy dale, or climbs the hill. 

Strong on his wing his busy followers play, 

Where writhing earthworms meet the unwelcome day, 

Till all is changed, and hill and level down 

Assume a livery of sober brown ; 

Again disturbed, when Giles with wearying strides 

From ridge to ridge the ponderous harrow guides, 

His heels deep sinking, every step he goes, 

Till dirt adhesive loads his clouted shoes. 

Welcome, green headland ! firm beneath his feet : 

Welcome, the friendly bank's refreshing seat ; 

There, warm with toil, his panting horses browse 

Their sheltered canopy of pendent boughs ; 

Till rest delicious chase each transient pain, 

And new-born vigor swell in every vein. 

Hour after hour and day to day succeeds, 

Till every clod and deep-drawn furrow spreads 

To crumbling mould, — a level surface clear, 

And strewed with corn to crown the rising year; 

And o'er the whole Giles, once tranverse again, 

In earth's moist bosom buries up the grain. 

The work is done ; no more to man is given ; 

The grateful farmer trusts the rest to Heaven. 

His simple errand done he homeward hies ; 
Another instantly its place supplies. 
Ine clatteriPig dairy-maid, immersed in steam^ 

42 



THE FARMERS BOY. 

Singing and scrubbing midst her milk and cream, 
Bawls out, '^ Go fetch the cows ! '^ — he hears no more ? 
For pigs and ducks and turkeys throng the door, 
And setting hens for constant war prepared, — 
A concert strange to that which late he heard. 
Straight to the meadow then he whistling goes ; 
With well-known halloo calls his lazy cows ; 
Down the rich pasture heedlessly they graze, 
Or hear the summons with an idle gaze, 
For well they know the cow-yard yields no mor« 
Its tempting fragrance, nor its wintry store. 
Reluctance marks their steps, sedate and slow. 
The right of conquest all the law they know ; 
The strong press on, the weak by turns succeed, 
And one 6uperior always takes the lead. 
Is ever foremost wheresoever they stray. 
Allowed precedence, undisputed sway : 
With jealous pride her station is maintained, 
For many a broil that post of honor gained. 
At home, the yard affords a grateful scene. 
For spring makes e'en a miry cow-yard clean. 
Thence from its chalky bed behold conveyed 
The rich manure that drenching winter made. 
Which, piled near home, grows green with many a weed, 
A promised nutriment for autumn's seed. 
Forth comes the maid, and like the morning smiles ; 
The mistress too, and followed close by Giles. 
A friendly tripod forms their humble seat, 
With pails bright scoured and delicately sweet. 
Where shadov/ing elms obstruct the morning ray 
Begins the work, begins the simple lay ; 
The full-charged udder yields its willing stream 
While Mary sings some lover's amorous dream ; 
And crouching Giles, beneath a neighboring tree. 
Tugs o'er his pail, and chants with equal glee ; 
Whose hat with battered brim, of nap so bare, 
From the cow's side purloins a coat of hair, — 
A mottled ensign of his harmless trade, 
An unambitious, peaceable cockade. 
As unambitious, too, that cheerful aid 
The mistress yields beside her rosy maid ; 
With joy she views her plenteous reeking store, 
And bears a brimmer to the dairy door ; 
Her cows dismissed, the luscious mead to roam. 
Till eve again recall them loaded home. robert bloomfield. 

43 



-a-^ 




MIDDLE AGE, 



^- 



AIR time of calm resolve — of sober thought! 
Quiet half-way hostelrie on life's long road, 
In which to rest and readjust our load ! 
High tableland, to which we have been brought 
By stumbling steps of ill-directed toil ! 
Season when not to achieve is to despair ! 
Last field for us of a full fruitful soil ! 
Only Spring-tide, our freighted aims to bear 
Onward to all our yearning dreams have sought ! 

How art thou changed ? once to our youthful eyes 
Thin silvering locks and thought's imprinted lines 
Of sloping Age gave weird and wintry signs ; 
But now these trophies ours, we recognise 
Only a voice faint rippling to its shore, 
And a weak tottering step as marks of eld. 
None are so far but some are on before ; 
Thus still at distance is the goal beheld, 
And to improve the way is truly wise. 

Farewell, ye blossomed hedges ! and the deep 
Thick green of Summer on the matted bough ! 
The languid Autumn mellows round us now : 
Yet fancy may its vernal beauties keep. 
Like holly leaves for a December wreath. 
To take this gift of life with trusting hands. 
And star with heavenly hopes the night of death, 
Is all that poor humanity demands 
To lull its meaner fears in easy sleep. 

JAMES HEDDERWICK. 



•<c 



DO GOOD 



:«:=>:> 



THOUSANDS of Men breathe, move, 
and live, pass off the stage of Life, 
and are heard of no more. Why ? 
They do not partake of good in the 
world, and none were blessed by them ; 
none could point to them as the means of 
their redemption ; not a line they wrote. 



not a word they spoke, could be recalled; 
and so they perished. Their light went 
out in darkness, and they were not re- 
membered more than the insects of yes- 
terday. Will you thus live and die ? Do 
good, and leave behind you a monument 
of virtue. chalmers. 



44 



CEASE NOT TO LABOR. 




HAT are we set on earth for ? Say, to toil — 
Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines 
For all the heat o' the day, till it declines, 
And Death's mild curfew shall Work assoil. 
God did anoint thee with his odorous oil, 
To wrestle, not to reign : and He assigns 
All thy tears over, like pure crystallines, 
For younger fellow-workers of the soil 
To wear for amulets. So others shall 
Take patience, labor, to their heart and hands^ 

From thy hands, and thy heart, and thy brave cheer, 

And God's grace fructify through thee to all. 

The least flower, with a brimming cup, may stand, 

And share its dew-drop with another near. 

ELIZ. B. BROWNING. 



WHATEYER YOU DO, DO IT WELL. 




-^Q/'tD) 



-^^•^ms^f^* 



'^^MmjmS^ JOB slighted, because it is 
apparently unimportant, 
leads to habitual neglect, so 
that men degenerate, insen- 
sibly, into bad workmen. 
"That is a good rough job," said a fore- 
man in our hearing, recently, and he meant 
that it was a piece of work, not elegant in 
itself, but strongly made and well put to- 
gether. 

Training the hand and eye to do work 
well, leads individuals to form correct 
habits in other respects, and a good work- 
man is, in most cases, a good citizen. No 
one need hope to rise above his present 
situation who suffers small things to pass 
by, unimproved, or who neglects, meta- 
phorically speaking, to pick up a cent be- 
cause it is not a dollar. Some of the wisest 
law-makers, the best statesmen, the most 
gifted artists, the most merciful judges, 
the most ingenious mechanics, rose from 
the great mass. 

A rival of a certain lawyer sought to 
humiliate him publicly by saying: " You 
blacked my father's boots once." "Yes," 
replied the lawyer, unabashed, " and I did 



it well." And because of his habit of 
doing even mean things well, he rose to 
greater. 

Take heart, all who toil ! all youths in 
humble situations, all in adverse circum- 
stances. If it be but to drive the plow, 
strive to do wdl ; if only to cut bolts, make 
good ones ; or to blow the bellows, keep 
the iron hot. It is attention to business 
that lifts the feet higher up on the ladder. 

Says the good Book : " Seest thou a man 
diligent in his business, he shall stand be- 
fore kings ; he shall not stand before mean 
men." 



THE LABORER. 



TOILING in the naked fields, 
Where no bush a shelter yields, 
Needy Labor dithering stands, 
Beats and blows his numbing hands. 
And upon the crumping snows 
Stamps in vain to warm his toes. 

Though all's in vain to keep him warm, 
Poverty must brave the storm. 
Friendship none its aid to lend, 
Constant ^ealth his only friend, 
Granting leave to live in pirin, 
Giving strength to toil in vain. 

JOHN CLARE. 



45 



WORK WITHOUT WEARINESS. 



IT CTION is the destiny and the lot of 

U man. All the conditions of his ex- 
1 istence suppose his activity. It is 
so in his physical frame. The elastic 
foot is for speed ; the firm, lithe limb, for 
endurance ; the arm, at once supple and 
sinewy, for toil ; the eye and the ear for 
their respective revelries of sight and 
sound. It is so in his mental constitu- 
tion. By the active exercise of the powers 
with which God has endowed him, he can 
classify objects and understand truth. He 
has a memory by which he can inherit 
the past, a regal imagination by which he 
can colonize and almost enact the future. 
It is so in his moral nature. There is a 
power of perception within him to dis- 
tinguish between right and wrong; an 
instinct of worship which, -however he 
may brutalize, he cannot stifle; yearn- 
ings after a nobler life which neither can 
debauchery extinguish, nor murder whol- 
ly kill. Moreover, God has made the 
vigor of the faculties contingent upon 
their exercise. The muscle will shrink if 
it be never strung. The moveless arm will 
stifien into hopeless catalepsy, while 

" The athlete, worsted in the Olympic games, 
Gains strength, at least, for life." 

Man was not made simply to live, the 
mere passive recipient of external impres- 
sions, a lifeless harp upon which each 
fitful wind might play ; he was made to 
act, to will, to influence, to become a power, 
to be the living centre of ever radiating 
impressions. His existence is not to be 
that of a zoophyte, the mere clinging of a 
helpless parasite to its guardian rock ; it 
is to be a life, beautiful and holy, beating 
with quick pulses of activity, adventurous 
with an energy of which insensate matter 
knows not, and finding in the rapturous 
doing life's very soul of joy. 

But though doing is a necessity of all, 
well-doing is not now natural to any. We 
have lost the inheritance of moral man- 
hood. A strange weakness has paralyzed 
the sources of our former power. Distrust 



and alienation are the mildest forms of 
feeling in which we naturally think upon 
God ; and so thorough is the spiritual 
decrepitude, so great the stoop and ail of 
our moral nature, that we can hardly 
conceive of a time when it was erect 
and healthy, and are almost disposed 
to think upon Eden as some fable of the 
classic olden time, or ancient limner's 
dream. 

While this is the actual condition of 
humanity, there is hope in its future des- 
tiny, and in its present experience too, 
because Christianity has revealed her glad 
tidings of great joy. By the death of 
Christ, the accepted substituted and pro- 
pitiation, provision is made for the trans- 
formation of the nature, and by the shed- 
ding forth of the Holy Ghost, the applica- 
tion of that provision is secured to the 
believing soul. It is quite possible, there- 
fore, that an entire counteraction should 
be setup against the depravity of the Fall; 
well-doing may become, as it once was, 
not a casual achievement, not a momen- 
tary chivalry, but the rule of every day, 
the native and constant forth putting of the 
clean heart and of the right spirit. 

It is possible that many who did well 
should grow weary in well-doing. The 
exhortation deprecates this. Weariness 
in well-doing ! How readily it creeps even 
upon the most vigilant of us ! Who has 
not felt its tendencies, and had to rise and 
shake himself, if, happily, the drowsiness 
might be removed from his soul ? Weari- 
ness in well-doing! Under the dread spell 
of its inconstancy, fair plans have proved 
abortive, and generous j^outh has lan- 
guished into premature age, and Christian 
consistency has come by a scar upon its 
beauty, and the edifice of Christian graces 
has been stayed in its erection, till the 
scoffing world, gazing from the unfinished 
masonrj' to the sluggard builder, says, 
" This man began to build, and was not 
able to finish." 



46 



WORK WITHOUT WEARINESS. 



The causes of this weariness are mani- 
fold, and we may each of us find them for 
ourselves if we study the Book that is 
within. Was it sloth that overcame us ? 
Did we shrink from the effort of continued 
resistance to evil, and of perjoetual watch- 
ing against our own insidious sin ? Was 
it SELF-coMPLACExcY that obtained posses- 
sion of our hearts; that old serpent of 
vanity which whisj^ered us into carnal 
security? Was it anger which seized us 
in its petulant grasp, because we were not 
appreciated by our fellows, and were 
mortified to find the hollow preference 
given to inferior men, because some cov- 
eted pre-eminence was denied us, and our 
efforts to do good were met only with 
prejudice or scorn ? Was it eespectabil- 
ITY which waved us off from commoner 
fellowship, wliich bade us leave all per- 
sonal toil to the hewers and drawers among 
the people, and which told us that we 
could condone for our forsaken labor by 
our willingness to direct and to subscribe? 
Was it the spirit of indifference which 
exhausted our energies ? Had we entered 
upon a work too high for us, which de- 
manded sacrifices that our heroism could 
not reach, and imposed restraints from 
which our passion fretted in rebellion? 
Ah! how many are there who thus rest in 
luxurious harbors until they lose their 
roll, or lull themselves into disastrous, 
and well nigh hopeless slumber, upon the 
world's enchanted ground. 

But why weary in well-doing? The 
obligations which pressed upon us so 
forcibly in our early decision have not 
diminished in their importance or grand- 
eur. The soul is worth as much. God's 
claims are as imperative. Eternity is 
as magnificent, and it is not farther off, 
but nearer. Heaven has not withered 
from its eternal spring. Hell is not less 
certain and real. Tlnn-e is no change, save 
only in ourselves. The motives remain 
with equal, nay, witli greater constraint 
upon us, for there are fewer sands in our 

47 



life-glass than when we first began. Oh, 
to cast off the weariness, and in recovered 
strength to go forth in the service of the 
Lord ! 

" Ye shall reap if ye faint not." The 
harvest is certain, and it is nearing. 
Every pulse approximates it. Every 
day is hastening its approach. Every 
Sabbath brings us nearer, to the so and of 
the joy bells, which, to usher in the eter- 
nal Sabbath, are ringing as for a bridal. 
Why be weary now! Does the pilgrim 
halt when he is in sight of the slirine? 
Though the racer may be panting and 
breathless, surely he will press on when 
the goal of his wishes is before him. Cour- 
age, my flagging brother ! The call is upon 
thee, hearken to it, and thine shall be the 
recompense of the reward. 

REV. WM. MORLEY PUNSHON. 



WORK AND HOPE. 

HOW speaks the present hour ? Act 1 
Walk upward glancing; 
So shall thy footsteps in glory be traced. 
Slow, but advancing. 
Scorn not the smallness of daily endeavor, 
Let the great meaning ennoble it ever; 
Droop not o'er efforts expended in vain ; 
Work, as believing that labor is gain. 

What doth the future say ? Hope! 

Turn thy face sunward I 
Look where the light fringes the far-rising 
slope, 

Day Cometh onward. 
Watch though so long be the twilight delaying, 
Let the first sunbeam arise on thee praying; 
Fear not, for greater is God by thy side 
Than armies of Satan a<::ainst thee allied. 



ONWARD. 

THERE is a fire-fly in the southern clime 
Which shineth only when upon the wing; 
So it is with the mind when once we rest, 
We darken. On ! said God unto the soul 
As to the earth, forever. On it goes, 
A rejoicing native of the infinite — 
As a bird of air — an orb of lieaven. 

PHILIP JAMES BAILEY. 



A CALL TO V^ORK. 



LISTEN ! the Master beseecheth, 

Calling each one by his name : 
His voice to each loving heart reach- 
eth, 
Its cheerfulest service to claim. 
Go where the vineyard demandeth 
Vine-dressers' nurture and care ; 
Or go where the white harvest standeth, 
The joy of the'reaper to share. 

Seek those of evil behavior, 

Bid them their lives to amend ; 
Go point the lost world to the Saviour, 

And be to the friendless a friend. 
Still be the lone heart of anguish 

Soothed by the pity of thine : 
By waysides if wounded ones languish, 

Go pour in ^.he oil and wine. 

Work though the enemies' laughter 

Over the valleys may sweep — 
For God's patient workers hereafter 

Shall laugh when the enemies weep. 



Ever on Jesus reliant 

Press on your chivalrous way— 
The mightiest Philistine giant 

His Davids are chartered to slay. 

Work for the good that is nighest ; 

Dream not of greatness afar; 
That glory is ever the highest 

Which shines upon men as they are. 
Work though the world would defeat yoUj 

Heed not its slander and scorn; 
Nor weary till angels shall greet you 

With smiles through the gates of the morn. 

Offer thy life on the altar ; 

In the high purpose be strong ; 
And :-f the tired spirit should falter 

Then svreeten thy labor with song. 
What if the poor heart complaineth. 

Soon shall its wailing be o'er; 
For there in the rest which remaineth, 

It shall grieve and be weary no more. 

W. MORLEY PUNSHON, LL. D. 



LABOR AND REST. 



'OW came still evening on, and twilight 
gray 
Had in her sober livery all things 
clad ; 
Silence accompanied : for beast and bird. 
They to their grassy couch, these to their 

nests, 
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale ; 
She all night long her amorous descant sung. 
Silence was pleased ; now glowed the firma- 
ment 
With living sapphires ; Hesperus, that led 
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, 
Rising in clouded majesty, at length 
Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light, 
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw. 
When Adam thus to Eve: "Fair consort, 
the hour 
Of night, and all things now retired to rest, 
Mind us of like repose, since God hath set 
Labor and rest, as day and night, to men 
Successive ; and the timely dew of sleep, 



Kow falling with soft slumberous weight 

inclines 
Our ej'elids. Other creatures all day long 
Eove idle, unemployed, and less need rest; 
Man hath his daily work of body or mind 
Appointed, which declares his dignity. 
And the regard of Heaven on all his ways ; 
While other animals unactive range, 
And of their doings God takes no account. 
To-morrow ere fresh morning streak the east 
With first approach of light, we must be risen, 
And at our pleasant labor, to reform 
Yon flowery arbors, yonder alleys green. 
Our walks at noon, with branches overgrown, 
That mock our scant manuring, and require 
More hands than ours to lop their wanton 

growth. 
Those blossoms also, and those dropping gums 
That lie bestrewn, unsightly and unsmooth, 
Ask riddance, if we mean to tread with ease; 
Meanwhile, as Kature wills, night bids us 

rest." 

JOHN MILTON. 



48 



SINGLE LIFE. -+' 




45*-^ 



-^M^ 



H! say not thou art all alone 
11 Upon this wide, cokl-lieurted earth; 



Wliy should the world's unholy mirth 
U])()ii tliy quiet dreams iiitrutle, 
Sigh not o'er joys forever flown — To >;eare those shapes of lienvenly birth 

The vacant chair, the silerit he.nlh ; That people oft thy solitude? 

49 



NOT ALL ALONE, 



Though many a fervent hope of youth 

Hath passed and scarcely left a trace ; 
Though earth-born love its tears and truth, 

No longer m thy heart have place ; 
Nor time, nor grief, can e'er efface 

The brighter hopes that now are thine — 
The fadeless love, all pitying grace. 

That makes thy darkest hours divine ! 

Not all alone ; for thou canst hold 

Communion sweet with saint and sage, 
And gather gems of price untold 

From many a pure unsullied page — 
Youth's dreams, the golden lights of age, 

The poet's love are still thine own ; 
For while such themes thy thoughts engage, 

Oh ! how canst thou be all alone ! 

Not all alone ; the lark's rich note. 

As mounting up to heaven she sings ; 
The thousand silvery sounds that float 

Above, below, on morning's wings ; 
The softer murmurs twilight brings — 

The cricket's chirp, cicala's glee ; 
All earth — that lyre of myriad strings — 

Is jubilant with life for thee ! 

Not all alone ! the whispering trees, 

The rippling brook, the starry sky, 
Have each peculiar harmonies — 

To soothe, subdue, and sanctify ; 
The low, sweet breath of evening's sigh 

For thee hath oft a friendly tone. 
To lift thy grateful thoughts on high, 

To say, thou art not all alone ! 

Not all alone ; a watchful, eye 

That notes the wandering sparrow's fall; 
A saving hand is ever nigh, 

A gracious Power attends thy call. 
When sadness holds thy heart in thrall, 

Is oft his tenderest mercy shown ; 
Seek then the balm vouchsafed to all, 

And thou canst never be alone ! 

ALARIC A. WATTS. 



AN IMPOSITION ON THE SINGLE, 

WHEN you have once showm your- 
self too considerate and self-deny- 
ing, to add a family of your own 
to an already crowded poj)ulation, you are 
vindictively marked out by your married 
friends, who have no similar condition, 



and no similar self-denial, as the recipient 
of half their conjugal troubles, and the 
born friend of all their children. Hus- 
bands and wives talk of the cares of mat- 
rimony, and bachelors and spinsters hear 
them. 



WILKIE COLLINS, 



B 



BACHELOR'S HALL. 

ACHELOR'S hall ! what a quare-lookin' 
jDlace it is ! 
Kape me from sich all the days of my 
life! 
Sure, but I think what a burnin' disgrace it is 
Niver at all to be gettin' a wife. 

See the old bachelor, gloomy and sad enough. 

Placing his taykettle over the fire ; 
Soon it tips over — St. Patrick! he's mad 
enough 

(If he were present) to fight wid the squire. 



Then, like a hog in a mortar-bed wallowing, 
Awkward enough, see him knading his 
dough ; 
Troth ! if the bread he could ate widout swal- 
lowing. 
How it would favor his palate, you know ! 

His dishcloth is missing ; the pigs are devour- 
ing it ; 
In the pursuit he has battered his shin ; 
A plate wanted washing ; Grimalkin is scour- 
ing it ; 
Thunder and turf! what a pickle he's in! 

His meal being over, the table's left setting so ; 

Dishes, take care of yourselves, if you can! 
But hunger returns ; then he's fuming and 
fretting so ! 

Och ! let him alone for a baste of a man. 

Pots, dishes, pans, and such grasy commodi- 
ties. 
Ashes and prata-skins, kiver the floor ; 
His cupboard's a storehouse of comical odd= 
ities 
Sich as had niver been neighbors before. 

Late in the night, then, he goes to bed shiv- 
erin' ; 

Niver the bit is the bed made at all ; 
He crapes, like a tarrapin, under the ki verin' — 

Bad luck to the picter of Bachelor's Hall. 

JOHN FINLEY, 



50 



BACHELOR'S FARE, 




UN!NT and free are a bachelor's reveries, 

Cheerily, merrily passes his life, 
Nothing knows he of connubial devilries, 

Troublesome children and clamorous wife. 
Free from satiet}', care and anxiety, 

Charms in variety fall to his share ; 
Bacchus's blisses, and Venus's kisses, 

This, boys, this is the Bachelor's Fare. 

A wife, like a canister, chattering, clattering, 

Tied to a dog, for his torment and dread, 
All bespattering, bumping and battering. 

Hurries and worries him till he is dead. 
Old ones are two devils, haunted with blue devils, 

Young ones are new devils raising despair; 
Doctors and nurses combining their curses, 

Adieu to full purses and Bachelor's Fare. 

Through such folly, days, once sweet holidays, 

Soon are embittered by wrangling and strife; 
Wives turn jolly days to melancholy days. 

All perplexing and vexing one's life ; 
Children are riotous, maid-servants fly at us. 

Mammy to quiet us growls like a bear ; 
Polly is squalling, and Molly is bawling. 

While dad is recalling his Bachelor's Fare. 



When they are older grown^ thnn they are 

bolder grown, 
Turning your temper and spurning your 

rule; 
Girls through foolishness, passion or mulish- 



Parry your wishes and marry a fool. 
Boys will anticipate, lavish and dissipate, 

All that your busy pate hoarded with care; 
Then tell me what jollity, fun or frivolity, 

Equals in quality Bachelor's Fare ! 

HORACE SMITH. 



COUSIN JANE. 

YJhfHAT do people think of her? 
s^^ Old Cousin Jane, 
With a sallow, sunken cheek. 
Hair with many a silver streak, 
Features never made for show, 
Eyes that faded long ago. 
Brows no longer smooth and fair. 
Form bent o'er with pain and care; 
Sad to be so old and plain, 

Slighted Cousin Jane ! 

What do we all think of her ? 
Our Cousin Jane ? 



Quieting the children's noise. 
Mending all the broken toys, 
Doing deftly, one by one. 
Duties others left undone. 
Gliding round the sick one's bed 
With a noiseless foot and tread ; 
Who like her to sooth in pain? 
Useful Cousin Jane ! 

What do angels think of her? 

Our Cousin Jane ? 
Bearing calmly every cross. 
Finding gain, though seeking loss. 
And a beauty ever bright 
In the rigid line of right. 



51 



COUSIN JANE. 



Self-forgetting, free from art, 
With a loving, cheerful heart, 
Living, aye, for others gain, 
Saintly Cousin Jane ! 

Would that thinking oft of her — • 

Our Cousin Jane — 
Might our inward vision clear, 
To behold the unseen near, 
And in forms of dullest hue, 
Heaven's own beauty shining through ! 
Reached — that land of purest day. 
Passed — misjudging earth away. 
What radiance will she then attain ! 

Star-crowned Cousin Jane ! 



THE UNLOVED. 

THE great mystery of God's providence 
is the permitted crushing out of 
flowering instincts. Life is maintained 
by the respiration of oxygen and of senti- 
ments. In the long catalogue of scientific 
cruelties, there is hardly anything quite so 
painful to think of as that experiment of 
putting an animal under the bell of an 
air-pump, and exhausting the air from it. 
[I never saw the accursed trick performed. 
Laus Deo ! ] There comes a time when 
the souls of human beings, women more 
even than men, begin to faint for the 
atmosphere of the affections they were 
made to breathe. Then it is that society 
places its transparent bell-glass over the 
young woman who is to be the subject of 
one of its fatal experiments. The element 
by which only the heart lives, is sucked 
out of her crystalline prison. Watch her 
through its transparent walls ; her bosom 
is heaving, but it is in a vacuum. Death 
is no riddle, compared to this. I remem- 
ber a poor girl's story in the " Book of 
Martyrs." The " dry pan and the gradual 
fire " were the images that frightened her 
most. How many have withered and 



wasted under as slow a torment in the 
walls of that larger inquisition which we 
call civilization! 

For that great procession of the un^ 
loved, who not only wear the crown oi 
thorns, but must hide it under the locks 
of brown or gray, under the snowy cap, 
under the chilling turban ; hide it even 
from themselves; perhaps never know 
they wear it, though it kills them; there 
is no depth of tenderness in my nature 
that pity has not sounded. Somewhere, 
somewhere love is in store for them ; the 
universe must not be allowed to fool them 
so cruelly. What infinite' pathos in the 
small, half-unconscious artifices by which 
unattractive young persons seek to recom- 
mend themselves to the favor of those 
toward whom our dear sisters, the unloved, 
like the rest, are impelled by God-given 
instincts! o. w. holmes. 



SOLILOQUY OF A BACHELOR. 

T DO much wonder that one man, see- 
-^ ing how much another man is a fool 
when he dedicates his behaviors to love, 
will become the argument of his own scorn 
by falling in love. One woman is fair, 
yet I am well ; another is wise, yet I am 
well ; another virtuous, yet I am well ; 
but till all graces be in one woman, one 
woman shall not come in my grace ! 

SHAKESPEARE. 



FROM ENDYMION. 

wTO one is so accursed by fate, 
III No one so utterly desolate, 
1 But some heart, though unknown, 

Responds unto his own. 

Responds, as if with unseen wings, 
A breath from heaven had touched its strings ; 
And whispers, in its song, 
" Where hast thou stayed so long?" 

H. W. LONGFELLOW. 



62 



EPITAPH ON THE UNMATED. 




j^ O chosen spot of ground she called her own. 
-^ In pilgrim guise o'er earth she wandered on ; 
-G-i Yet always in her path some flowers were strown. 
No dear ones were her own peculiar care, 
So was her bounty free as heaven's air ; 
For every claim she had enough to spare. 
And, loving more her heart to give than lend. 
Though oft deceived in many a trusted friend, 
She hoped, believed, and trusted to the end. 

She had her joys; — 'twas joy to her to love. 

To labor in the world with God above. 

And tender hearts that ever near did move. 

She had her griefs ; — but they left peace behind. 

And healing came on every stormy wind. 

And still with silver every cloud was lined. 

And every loss sublimed some low desire. 

And every sorrow taught her to aspire, 

Till waiting angels bade her " Go up higher." 



BROTHER AND SISTER. 



BRIDGET ELIA has been my house- 
keeper for many a long year. I 
have obligations to Bridget extend- 
ing beyond the period of memory. We 
house together, old bachelor and maid, in 
a sort of double singleness ; with such 
tolerable comfort, upon the whole, that I, 
for one, find in myself no sort of disposi- 
tion to go out upon the mountains, with 
the rash king's offspring, to bewail my 
celibacy. We agree pretty well in our 
tastes and habits — yet so, as " with a dif- 
ference." We are generally in harmony, 
with occasional bickerings — as it should 
be among near relations. We are both of 
us inclined to be a little too positive ; and 
I have observed the result of our dis- 
putes to be almost uniformly this : that in 
matters of fact, dates, and circumstances, 
it turns out, that I was in the right, and 



Bridget in the wrong. But where w^e 
have differed upon moral points, upon 
something proper to be done, or let alone ; 
whatever heat of opposition, or steadiness 
of conviction, I set out with, I am sure 
always, in the long-run, to be brought 
over to her way of thinking ! Her educa- 
tion in youth was not much attended to ; 
and she happily missed all that train of 
female garniture, which passeth by the 
name of accomplishments. She was tum- 
bled early, by accident or design, into a 
spacious closet of good old English read- 
ing, without much selection or prohibition, 
and browsed at will upon that fair and 
wholesome pasturage. Had I twenty 
girls, they should he brought up exactly 
in this fashion. I know not whether their 
chance in wedlock might not be dimin- 
ished by it ; but I can answer for it, that 
it makes (if the woi-st comes to the worst) 
incomparable old maids ! 



CHARLES LAMB. 



4c 



53 



THE BACHELOR'S DREAM. 



T TY pipe is lit, my grog is mixed, 

*^ y My curtains drawn, and all is snng 

Old Puss is in her elbow-chair, 

And Tray is sitting on the rug. 
Last night I had a curious dream. 

Miss Susan Bates was Mistress Mogg — 
What d' ye think of that, my cat? 

What d' ye think of that, my dog? 

She looked so fair, she sang so well, 

I could but woo and she was won ; 
Myself in blue, the bride in white, 

The ring was placed, the deed was done ! 
Away we went in chaise-and-four. 

As fast as grinning boys could flog— 
What d'ye think of that, my cat? 

What d' ye think of that, my dog ? 

What loving iete-a-tetes to come ! 

What tete-a-tetes must still defer ! 
When Susan came to live with me. 

Her mother came to live with her! 
With sister Belle she could n't part, 

But all MY ties had leave to jog — 
What d' ye think of that, my cat? 

What d' ye think of that, my dog? 

The mother brought a pretty Poll — 

A monkey, too, w^hat work he made ! 
The sister introduced a beau — ■ 

My Susan brought a favorite maid. 
She had a tabby of her own, — 

A snappish mongrel christened Gog, — 
What d' ye think of that, my cat? 

What d' ye think of that, my dog? 

The monkey bit — the parrot screamed. 

Ail day the sister strummed and sung; 
The petted maid was such a scold I 

My Susan learned to use her tongue ; 
Her mother had such wretched health, 

She sat and croaked like any frog — 
What d' ye think of that, my cat? 

What d' ye think of that, my dog ? 

No longer Deary, Duck, and Love, 
I soon came down to simple '' M ! " 

The very servants crossed my wish, 
My Susan let me down to them. 

The poker hardly seemed my own, 



I might as well have been a log — • 
What d' ye think of that, my cat? 
What d' ye think of that, my dog ? 

My clothes they were the queerest shape! 

Such coats and hats she never met ! 
My ways they were oddest ways ! 

My friends were such a vulgar set ! 
Poor Tompkinson was snubbed and 
huffed, 

She could not bear that Mister Blogg — 
What d' ye think of that, my cat? 

What d' ye think of that, my dog? 

At times we had a spar, and then 
Mamma must mingle in the song — 
The sister took a sister's part— 

The maid declared her master wrong — 
The parrot learned to call me " Fool I " 

My life was like a London fog — • 
What d' ye think of that, my cat ? 

What d' ye think of that, my dog? 

My Susan's taste was superfine, 

As proved by bills that had no end ; 
/never had a decent coat — 

/never had a coin to spend! 
She forced me to resign my club, 
Lay down my pipe, retrench my grog — 
What d' ye think of that, my cat? 
What d' ye think of that, my dog? 

Each Sunday night we gave a rout 

To fops and flirts, a pretty list; 
And when I tried to steal away 

I found my study full of whist ! 
Then, first to come, and last to go, 

There always was a Captain Hogg — 
What d' ye think of that, my cat? 

What d' ye think of that, my dog ? 

Now was not that an awful dream 

For one who single is and snug — 
With pussy in the elbow-chair, 

And Tra}^ reposing on the rug? — 
If I must totter down the hill, 

'Tis safest down without a clog — - 
What d' ye think of that, my cat? 

What d' ye think of that, my dog ? 

THOMAS HOOD. 



64 




THE OLD MAID, 



W 



HY sits she thus in sohtude? Her heart 
Seems melting in her eyes' deUcious 
bine ; 
And as it heaves, her ripe lips lie apart, 

As if to let its heavy throbbings through ; 
In her dark eye a depth of softness swells, 

Deeper than that her careless girlhood wore ; 
And her cheek crimsons with the hue that 
tells 
The rich, fair fruit is ripened to the core. 

It is her thirtieth birthday ! "With a sigh 

Her soul hath turned from youth's luxuri- 
ant bowers, 
And her heart taken up the last sweet tie 

That measured out its links of golden hours ! 
She feels her inmost soul within her stir 

With thoughts too wild and passionate to 
speak ; 
Yet her full heart — its own interpreter — 

Translates itself in silence on her check. 

Joy's opening buds, affection's glowing flowers, 

Once lightly sprang within her beaming 
track ; 
Oh, life was beautifid in tliose lost hours! 

And yet she does not wish to wander back ; 
No! she but loves in loneliness to think 

On pleasures past, though never more to l)e ; 
Hojie links her to the future — Imt the link 

That binds her to the past is memory. 



From her lone path she never turns aside, 
Though passionate worshippers before her 
fall ; 
Like some pure planet in her lonely pride. 

She seems to soar and beam above them all. 
Kot that her heart is cold — emotions new 
And fresh as flowers are with her heart- 
strings knit ; 
And sweeth' mournful pleasures wander 
through 
Her virgin soul, and softly ruffle it. 

For she hath lived with heart and soul alive 

To all that makes life beautiful and fair ; 
Sweet thoughts, like honey-bees, huxe made 
their hive 

Of her soft bosom-cell, and cluster there. 
Yet life is not to her what it has been — 

Her soul hath learned to look beyond its 
gloss ; 
And now she hovers, like a star, between 

Her deeds of love, bcr Saviour on the cross'. 

Beneath the cares of earth she does not bcw, 
Though she hath ofttimes drained its bitter 
cup ; 

But ever wanders on with b(\ivenward brow, 
And eyes whose lovely lids are lifted up. 

Sh(^ feels that in that lovelic^r. happier sphere 
Her bosom yet will, bird-like, lindits juate, 



55 



THE OLD MAID, 



And all the joys it found so blissful here 
Within that spirit-realm perpetuate. 

Yet sometimes o'er her trembling heartstrings 
thrill 
Soft sighs — for raptures it hath ne'er enj oy ed ; 
And then she dreams of love, and strives to fill 
With wild and passionate thoughts the crav- 
ing void. 
And thus she wanders on — half sad, half 
blest— 
Without a mate for the pure, lonely heart 
That, yearning, throbs within her virgin breast, 
Kever to find its lovely counterpart ! 

AMELIA B. WELBY. 



THE OLD MAID'S PRAYER TO DIANA. 

SINCE thou and the stars, my dear God- 
dess, decree, 
That old maid as I am, and old maid I 
must be, 
Oh ! hear the petition I render to thee, 

For to bear it, must be my endeavor, 
From the grief of my friendships all dropping 

around, 
Till not one that I loved in my youth can be 

found. 
From the legacy hunters which near us 
abound, 
Diana, thy servant deliver ! 

From the scorn of the young, and the flouts 

of the gay. 
From all the trite ridicule rattled away. 
By the i^ert ones who know nothing wiser to 

say, 
Or a spirit to laugh at them, give her. 
From rexjining at fancied neglected desert, 
Or, vain of a civil speech, bridling alert 
From finical niceness, or slatternly dirt, 
Diana, thy servant deliver ! 

From over-solicitous guarding of pelf, 
From humor unchecked, that most obstinate 

elf. 
From every unsocial attention to self, 

Or ridiculous whim whatsoever, 
From the vajDorish freaks, or methodical airs. 
Apt to si^rout in a brain that's exempted from 

cares. 
From impertinent meddHng in other's affairs, 

Diana, thy servant deliver ! 



From spleen at beholding the young more 

caressed, 
From pettish asperity tartly expressed, 
From scandal, detraction, and every such pest, 

From all thy true servant deliver ! 
Nor let satisfaction depart from her lot. 
Let her sing, if at ease, and be patient if not, 
Be pleased when remembered, content, if 
forgot. 
Till the Fates her slight thread shall dis- 
sever. 

MRS. TIGHE. 



KIZZY KRINGLE. 

I AM an old maid. Perhaps I might 
have been married. Perhaps not. I 
don't know as that is anybody's busi- 
ness. I have a little room I call my own. 
Old maids like to have a good time as well 
as other folks ; so I don't shut myself 
moping in my little salt-box of a room. 
When the four walls close too tight around 
me, there are four or five families where 
I go visiting. Everybody is glad to see 
me. If the baby has the colic, I tend it ; 
if Willie wants a new tail to his kite, I 
make it ; if Lottie has torn her best frock, 
I mend it ; and if papa comes slily up to 
me, and slips a dickey into my hand, I 
sew the missing string on, and say nothing. 
I have lately made the acquaintance of a 
new family, who have a whole house-full 
of children — not one too many, according 
to my way of thinking. Louisas and 
Marys, and Lauras and Annas, and 
Frankies and Harries, beside a little baby 
that its mother has not had time to name. 
I love to .watch little children. I love to 
hear them talk, when they don't think I am 
listening. I love to read to them, and 
watch their eyes sparkle. They are oftener 
much pleasanter company than grown 
people ; at least, so Kizzy thinks. But that 
is only an old maid's opinion. 

FANNY FERN. 



§« 



SAILED TO-NIGHT. 



VER the moonlit sea, 

Far away from Devon and me, 
My lover has sailed to-night !- 
And I may lie and weep, 
Whilst my kindred are fast asleep, 
Such tears as are kept from sight — 



Weep, till my eye grows dim 
Underneath the reddening rim. 

For the love I drove away ; 
Weep with an aching brain, 
And a heart full of hidden pain. 

That must never see the day. 




The love I could not tell 

Lay deep in my heart as a well. 

Where I kept my secret hid ; 
And when he came I know, 
Though forehead and cheek were aglow. 

My lip was a closed lid. 



No wreck e'er cast ashore 

'Mid the wind and the water's roar 

Could be such a wreck as I ; 
Lost on the reefs of pride. 
To be lashed by the chafing tide, 

Of memory till I die. 



I could not cry aloud 

" I love you,'' for, oh, I was proud, 

As I thought a maid should be; 
So when he came to woo, 
I bound up my roses with rue, — 

And now, he's off o'er the sea. 



Yet haply, after years. 

When I have out-wept youthful tears, 

My love may re-sweep the main : 
And then if he comes to sue, 
He will find me tranquil, but true. 

And leave me never again. 

ISABELLA BANKS 



67 



THE BACHELORS. 




HE naturalists say that these singular creatures 

Are alike in their habits, their form, and their features ; 
Tlie Benedicks think that their senses are small. 
Whilst women affirm they have no sense at all, 
But are curious compounds of verj strange stuff. 

Inflexible, hard, and exceedingly touo-h : • 

The old ones have wigs, and the young ones have hair. 
And they scent it, and curl it, and friz it with care, 
And turn it to dark should it chance to be fair. 

They are ramblers and wanderers, never at home, 
Making sure of a welcome wherever they roam ; 
And every one knows that the Bachelor's den 

Is a room set apart for these singular men 

A nook in the clouds, perhaps five by four, 

With skylight, or no light, ghosts, goblins, and gloom, 

And every where known as the Bachelor's Room. 

These creatures, 'tis said, are not valued at all, 
Except when the herb give a Bachelor's ball ; ' 
Then dress'd in their best, in their gold-broidered vest, 
'Tis allowed, as a fact, that they act with much tact, 
And they lisp out, " How do ? " and they coo and they sue, 
And they smile for awhile, their guests to beguile, 
Condescending and bending, for fear of offending': 
Though inert, they expect to be pert, and to flirt. 
And they turn and they twist, and are great hands at whist; 
And they whirl and they twirl— they whisk and are brisk, 
And they whiz and they quiz, and they spy with their eye. 
And they sigh as they fly, 

For they meet to be sweet, and are fleet on their feet, 
Pattering, and flattering, and chattering— 
Spluttering, and fluttering, and buttering— 
Advancing, and glancing, and dancing, and prancing. 
And bumping and jumping, and stumping, and thumping- 
Sounding and bounding around and around. 
And sliding and gliding with minuet pace- 
Pirouetting, and sitting with infinite grace. 

They like dashing and flashing, lashing and splashing. 
Pacing and pacing, chasing and lacing; 
They are flittering and glittering, gallant and gay. 
Yawning all morning, and lounging all day; 
Love living in London, life loitering away 
At their clubs in the dubs, or with beaux in the rows, 

58 



THE BACHELORS, 

Or, what's propera, at the opera, 

Reaching home in the niornlnu: — fie ! fie sirs, for sham&^ 

At an hour, for their sakes, I won't venture to name. 

But when the bachelor-boy grows old, 
And these butterfly days are past — 

\yhen threescore years their tale have told, 

And the days are wet, and the nights are cold. 

And something more is required than gold 

His heart to cheer, and his hearth uphold — 
When, in fact, he finds he's completely sold, 
And the world can grumble, and women can scold— 
His sun setting fast, and his tale being told, 
He then repents at last ! 

When he, at length, is an odd old man, 

With no warmer friend than a warming-pan, 

He is fidgety, fretful, and frowsty — in fine, 

Loves self, and his bed, and his dinner, and wine 

And he rates and he prates,, and reads the debates. 

And abuses the world, and the women he hates. 

And is cosing and prosing, and dozing all day. 

And snoring, and roaring, and boring away ; 

And he's huffy, and stuify, and puffy, and snuffy, 

And musty, and fusty, and rusty, and crusty ; 

Sneezing, and wheezing, and teasing, and freezing, 

And grumbling, and fumbling, and mumbling, and stumbling; 

Falling, and bawling, and crawling, and sprawling. 

Withering, and dithering, and quivering, and shivering ; 

Waking, and aching, and quaking and shaking, 

Ailing, and wailing, and always bewailing. 

Weary and dreary, and nothing that's cheery. 

Groaning and moaning, his selfishness owning ; 

And crying and sighing, while lying and dying. 

Grieving and heaving, though nauglit he is leaving 

But wealth and ill-health, and his pelf, and himsel£ 

Then he sends for a doctor to cure or to kill, 

With his wonderful skill. 

And a very big bill, 

All of which is worth nil, 
But who gives him offense, as well as a pill, 
By dropping a hint about maldng his will; 

For the game's up at last, 

The grave die is cast. 
Never was fretful antiquity mended — 
So the lonely life of the bachelor's ended. 

59 



THE BACHELORS. 

Kobody mourns him, nobody sighs, 
Nobody misses him, nobody cries; 
For whether a fool, or whether he's wis^ 
Nobody grieves when a bachelor dies. 

Now, gentlemen ! mark me, for this is the life 
That is led by a man never bless'd with a wife ; 
And this is the way that he yields up his breath. 
Attested by ail who are in at the death. 



THE OLD BACHELOR. 

J^ years had passed, and forty ere the six,^ 
When Time began to play his usual 
tricks ; — 
The looks once comely in a virgin's sight. 
Locks of pure brown, displayed the encroach- 
ing white ; 
The blood, once fervid, now to cool began. 
And Time's strong pressure to subdue the man. 
I rode or walked as I was wont before, 
Bat now the bounding spirit was no more ; 
A moderate pace would now my body heat ; 
A walk of moderate length distress my feet. 
I showed my stranger guest those hills sublime, 
But said, ''The view is poor; we need not 

climb/' 
At a friend's mansion I began to dread 
The cold neat parlor and the gay glazed bed : 
At home I felt a more decided taste. 
And must have all things in my order placed. 
I ceased to hunt ; my horses pleased me less— 
My dinner more ; I learned to play at chess. 

I took my dog and gun, but saw the brute 

Was disappointed that I did not shoot- 

My morning walks I now could bear to lose, 

And blessed the shower that gave me not to choose : 

In fact, I felt a languor stealing on ; 

The active arm, the agile hand, were gone ; 

Small dally actions into habits grew. 

And new dislike to forms and fashions new. 

I loved my trees in order to dispose ; 

I numbered peaches, looked how stocks arose ; 

Told the same story oft— in short, began to jDrose. crabbe. 

60 




G^tJm. 



OLD BACHELORS. 



S^JVd 




HE use of the term old bachelor 
might be objected to, with as 
much reason as tliat of old 
maid, were it uot for the fact 
that it has been regarded less 
^contemptuously. Until with- 
in the last century, books have been writ- 
ten almost entirely by men. Looking at 
the subject from their point of view, they 
have generally represented that, if a woman 
remained single, it was because she could 
not avoid it; and that her unfortunate 
condition was the consequence of her being 
repulsive in person or manners. The 
dramas and general literature of all coun- 
tries abound with jokes on this subject. 
Women are described as jumping with 
ridiculous haste at the first chance to mar- 
ry, and as being greatly annoyed if no 
chance presents itself. To speak of women 
as in the market, and of men as purchas- 
ers, has so long been a general habit, that 
it is done unconsciously; and the habit 
doubtless embodies a truth, though few 
people reflect why it is so. Nearly all the 
trades, professions, and offices are engrossed 
by men; hence marriage is almost the 
only honorable means of support for 
women, and almost the only avenue open 
to those w^ho are ambitious of position in 
society. This state of things gives an un- 
healthy stimulus to match-making, and 
does much to degrade the true dignity and 
purity of marriage. But I allude to it 
here merely as explanatory why old maid 
is considered a more reproachful term than 
old bachelor; one being supposed to be 
incurred voluntarily, and the other by 
compulsion. Men, on the contrary, being 
masters of the field, are troubled with no 
sense of shame, if they continue in an 



61 



isolated position through life, though they 
may experience regret. 

It is true, the single brotherhood are 
not without their annoyances. A meddle- 
some woman will sometimes remark to a 
bachelor friend, in a significant sort of 
way, that the back of his coat has a one- 
eyed look, by reason of the deficiency of 
a button ; and she w'ill add, in a compas- 
sionate tone, " But what else can be ex- 
j^ected, when a man has no wife to look 
after him?" Another, still more mis- 
chievous, who happens to know of his 
attending the Fair, and trying to buy 
various articles otherwise appropriated, 
will sometimes offer impertinent consola- 
tion ; saying, ^' Don't be discouraged. Try 
again. Perhaps, you '11 have better luck 
next time. You know the proverb says, 
There never was so silly a Jack but there's 
as silly a Gill." Then again, the French 
phrase for old bachelor, Vicax Garcon, 
translates itself into right impudent Eng- 
lish. Why on earth should a man be called 
the Old Boy, merely because he has not 
seen fit to marry ? when it is either because 
he don't like the market, or wants to look 
further, in order to make sure of getting 
his money's worth in the article. 

I have spoken facetiously, but it may 
well be excused. Women have for so 
many generations been the subject of piti- 
less jokes, rung through all manner of 
changes, and not always in the best taste, 
that it is pardonable to throw back a few 
jests, provided it be done in sport, rather 
than in malice. The simple fact is, how- 
ever, that what I huve said of unmar- 
ried women is also true of unmarried 
men ; their being single is often the result 
of superior delicacy and refinement ot* 



OLD BACHELORS. 



feeling. Those who are determined to 
marry, will usually accomplish their object, 
sooner, or later, while those who shrink 
from making wedlock a mere convenience, 
unsanctified by affection, will prefer isola- 
tion, though they sometimes find it sad. 1 
am now thinking of one, who, for many 
reasons would probably be accepted by 
ninety-nine women out of a hundred. I 
once said to him, " How is it, that a man 
of your domestic tastes and affectionate 
disposition has never married?" He 
hesitated a moment, then drew from under 
liis vest the miniature of a very lovely 
woman, and placed it in my hand. I 
looked up with an inquiring glanre, to 
which he replied: "Yes, perhaps it 
might have been ; perhaps it ouglit to have 
been. But I had duties to perform toward 
my widowed mother, which made me doubt 
whether it were justifiable to declare my 
feelings to the youDg lady. Meanwhile, 
another offered himself. She married 
him, and is, I believe, happy. I have 
never seen another woman who awakened 
in me the same feelings, and so I have 
remained unmarried/' 

I knew twin brothers, who became at- 
tached to the same lady. One was silent, 
for his brother's sake ; but he never mar- 
ried ; and through life he loved and assist- 
ed his brother's children, as if they had 
been his own. There are many such facts 
to prove that self-sacrifice and constancy 
are far from being exclusively feminine 
virtues. 

But my impression is, that there is a 
larger proportion of unmarried women 
than of unmarried men, who lead unself- 
ish, useful lives. I, at least, have hap- 
pened to know of more *^ Aunt Kindlys/' 
than Uncle Kindlys. Women, by the 
nature of their in-door habits and ocoupa- 
tions, can nestle themselves into the inmost 
of other people's families, much more 



readily than men. The household inmate, 
who cuts paper-dolls to amuse fretful 
children, or soothes them with lullabies 
when they are tired, — who sews on buttons 
for the father, when he is in a hurry, or 
makes goodies for the invalid mother, — • 
becomes part and parcel of the household ; 
whereas a bachelor is apt to be a sort of 
appendage; beloved and agreeable, per- 
haps, but still something on the outside. 
He is like moss on the tree, very pretty 
and ornamental, especially when lighted 
up by sunshine; but no inherent part of 
the tree, essential to its growth. Some- 
times, indeed, one meets "with a genial old 
bachelor, who cannot enter the house of a 
married friend, or relative, without having 
the children climb into his lap, pull out 
his watch, and search his pocket for sugar- 
plums. But generally, it must be con- 
fessed that a Yicux Garcon acts like an 
Old Boy when he attempts to make him- 
self useful in the house. His efforts to 
quiet crying babies are laughable, and 
invariably result in making the babies cry 
more emphatically, A dignified, scholastic 
bachelor, who had been spending the night 
with a married fi'.'end, was leaving his 
house after breakfast, w^hen a lovely little 
girl of four or five summers peeped from 
the shrubbery, and called out, "Good 
morning!" "Good morning, child I" 
replied he, with the greatest solemnity of 
manner, and passed on. A single woman 
would have said, "Good morning, dear!" 
or " Good morning, little one ! " But the 
bachelor Avas as dignified as if he had 
been making an apostrophe to the stars. 
Yet he had a great, kind heart, and was a 
bachelor because that heart was too refined 
to easily forget a first impression. 

I know another bachelor, who finds 
time to be a benefactor to his neighbor- 
hood, though his life is full of labors and 
cares. In addition to the perpetual work 



62 



OLD BACHELORS. 



of a farm, he devotes himself with filial 
tenderness to a widowed mother and in- 
valid aunts, and yet he is always ready 
wherever lielp or sympathy is needed. If 
a poor widow needs wood cut, he promptly 
supplies the want, and few men with a 
carriage and four are so ready to furnish 
a horse for any kindly service. The chil- 
dren all know his sleigh, and call after 
him for a ride. None of his animals 



have the forlorn, melancholy look which 
indicates a hard master. 1 he expression 
of his countenance would never suggest to 
any one the condition of an old bachelor; 
on the contrary, you would suppose he had 
long been accustomed to look into the 
eyes of little ones clambering upon his 
knees for a kiss. This is because he adopts 
all little humans into his heart. 



L. MARIA CHILD. 




WEETLY are the wild birds singinj 
Softly purls the silvery rill, 
Yet thoui^h all around is lovely, 
I am lonely, lonely still ! 
Vainly sunbeams spread before nie, 

Vainly flowers their scents impart — 
I am lonely, desolation 

Heigiis supretne within my heart! 

Vainly are the wild birds singing, 

Vainly purls the silv'ry rill ; 
For though all around is lovely, 
i am lonely, lonely still. 



Ah ! how long ere patient waiting. 

Waiting that to bear is hard, 
Finds in love that cannot alter. 

Bliss that is a full reward. 
Soon, ay soon, or life will vanish, 
Hope on wearied wings depart; 
Soon, or else despair will silence 
Beatings of this weary heart! 

Vainly are the wikl birds ginging, 

Vainly purls the silv'ry rill ; 
For though all around is lovely, 
I am lonely, lonely still. 



63 



SONG OF ANTICIPATION. 



ODEAR, I'm beginning to tremble, 
Only think of what people would say, 
If I should not chance to get married ! 
Let me see — I am twenty next May. 

Why, I can remember the time, 
When twenty I thought an old maid ! 

But I yet shall encounter the time, 
When I think it's quite young, I'm afraid I 

For myself, I don't think I should mind, 

I could live very happy alone, 
But people so laugh at old maids. 

And I don't like a laugh, I must own. 

And to have a whole volley of aunts, 

And cousins, insulting my ear. 
With, " I wonder you are not engaged. 

At your age I was married, my dear !" 

Now, what is more teazing than this, 
'Tis worse than the creak of a door, 

I'd wed the first fool that came stalking along, 
If I need not hear this any more ! 

But to folly and wisdom I'll give, 
A brief sketch of my person and life, 

" Verhum sat," take my word for it, I 
Should make a most excellent wife I 

My eyes rather border on green, 

My figure is not very tall, 
But I dress in extreme of the style. 

And that you know makes up for all ! 

My face's not so broad as the moon's, 
My foot's very well when it's hid ; 

I don't call myself ugly, I'm sure ; 
Was there ever a maiden that did? 

1 never but once was in love ; 

The years since it happened are three ; 
But my pride made me act like a prude. 

And my chosen one would not choose me. 

When tired of loving, unloved, 
I thought the best thing was to die, 

So I wore a long f^ice a long while. 
And never would speak sans a sigh I 

But my health was remarkably good. 
And all I could do 'twould not fail; 

Not a friend would confess I looked thin, 
And I could not contrive to look pale I 

When cut both by love and by death, 
I began to be rude as a bear; 



Full of frolics, and capers, and fiin. 
To make matter-of-fact people stare I 

Now to folly and wisdom I've given 
A sketch of my person and life ; 

" Verbum sat," take my word for it, I 
Should make a most excellent wife! 

But if "nobody's coming to many, 

Nobody coming to woo," 
I'll flourish a cheery old maiden, 

And laugh with the laughers too I 

My face shall be full of sunshine. 

My spirit a "house of glee," 
My heart full of loving-kindness, 

Though nobody mai-ry me ! 

ELIZABETH AUSTIN, 



64 



SOLITUDE OF SINGLE WOMEN. 

IT is a condition to which a single 
woman must make up her mind, 
that the close of her days will be 
more or less solitary. Yet there is a sol- 
itude which old age feels to be as natural 
and satisfying as that rest which seems 
such an irksomeness to youth, but which 
gradually grows into the best blessings 
of our lives ; and there is another solitude, 
so full of peace and hope, that it is like 
Jacob's sleep in the wilderness, at the foot 
of the ladder of angels. 

"All things are less dreadful than they s'eem." 

And it may be that the extreme loneli- 
ness wdiich, viewed afar off, appears to an 
unmarried woman as one of the saddest 
of the inevitable results of her lot, shall 
by that time have lost all its pain, and be 
regarded but as the quiet dreamy hour 
*' between the lights ; " when the day's 
work is done, and we lean back, closing 
our eyes, to think it all over before we 
finally go to rest, or to look forward, in 
faith and hope, unto the coming morning. 

A finished life — a life which has made 
the best of all the materials granted to it, 
and through which, be its web dark or 



SOLITUDE OF SINGLE WOMEN, 



bright, its pattern clear or clouded, can 
now be traced j^lainly the hand of the 
Great Designer ; surely this is worth liv- 
ing for. And though at its end it may 
be somewhat lonely ; though a servant's 
and not a daughter's ami may guide the 
failing step ; though most likely it will 
be strangers only who come about the 
dying bed, close the eyes that no husband 
ever kissed, and draw the shroud kindly 
over the poor withered breast where no 
child's head has ever lain ; still, such a 
life is not to be pitied, for it is a com- 
pleted life. It has fulfilled its appointed 
course, and returns to the Giver of all 
breath, as pure as He gave it. 



DINAH MULOCH CRAIK. 



NOT A MISTAKE, 

OUR neighbor over the way, passes for 
a woman wlio has failed in her ca- 
reer, because ehe is an old maid. 
People wag solemn heads of pity, and say 
that she made so great a mistake in not 
marrying the brilliant and famous man 
who was for long years her suitor. It is 
clear that no orange flower will ever bloom 
for her. The young people think of her 
solitary hours of bitter regret, and please 
their imaginations with fancying her hard 
struggle with the conviction that she has 
lost all that makes life beautiful. But 
this old maid who is thus pitied for a 
secret sorrow, is a woman whose nature is 
a tropic, in which the sun shines, the birds 
sing, the flowers bloom forever. There 
are no regrets, no doubts and half wishes, 
but a calm sweetness, a transparent peace. 
I saw her blush when her old lover pass- 
ed by, or paused to speak to her, but it 
was only the sign of delicate feminine 
consciousness. She knew his love and 
honored it, although she could not under- 
stand itj nor return it. Although all the 



world had exclaimed at her indifference 
to such homage, and had declared it was 
astonishing she should lose so fine a match^ 
she would only say simply and quietly, 
*' If the highest Ideal of manly nobleness, 
intellect, and worth, loved me, and I did 
not lovCy how could I marry ?" 



G. W. CURTIS. 



I 



THE WOUNDED HEART. 

WEET, thou hast trod on a heart. 

Pass ! there's a world full of men ; 
And women as fair as thou art 
Must do such things now and then. 



Thou only hast stepped unaware, — 

Malice no one can impute ; 
And why should a heart have been there, 

In the way of a fair woman's foot? 

It was not a stone that could trip, 
Nor was it a thorn that could rend ; 

Put up thy proud under-lip ! 

'Twas merely the heart of a friend. 

And yet, peradventure, one day 
Thou, sitting alone at the glass. 

Remarking the bloom gone away. 

Where the smile in its dimj)lement waa, 

And seeking around thee in vain 
From hundreds who flattered before. 

Such a word as, " Oh, not in the main 
Do I hold thee less precious, but morel" 

Thou'lt sigh, very like, on thy i")art, 
" Of all I have known or can know, 

I wish I had only that heart 
I trod upon ages ago !" 



E . B . BROWNING, 



TALK not of -wasted alTection; afrcction 
never was wasted; 
If it enrich not the heart of another, ita 
waters returning 
Back to their spriiiii:s, like the rain, shall fill 

thoiu full of ri'frcsUinent. 
That which the fountain sends forth returna 
again to the fountain. 

FROM EVANGELINK — PART II. 



65 



UNMARRIED WOMEN. 




Society moves slowly toward 
civilization, but when we com- 
pare epochs half a century, or 
even a quarter of a century 
.^^{r ^. apart, we perceive many signs 
that progress is made. Among these 
pleasant indications is the fact that the 
phrase " old maid" has gone wellnigh out 
of fashion ; that jests on the subject are 
no longer considered witty, and are never 
uttered by gentlemen. In my youth, I 
not unfrequently heard women of thirty 
addressed something in this style : '^ What, 
not married yet ? If you don't take care, 
you will outstand your market.'^ Such 
words could never be otherwise than dis- 
agreeable, nay, positively offensive, to any 
woman of sensibility and natural refine- 
ment ; and that not merely on account of 
wounded vanity, or disappointed affection, 
or youthful visions receding in the dis- 
tance, but because the idea of being in the 
market^ of being a commodity ^ rather than 
an individual, is odious to every human 
being. 

I believe a large proportion of unmar- 
ried women are so, simply because they 
have too much conscience and delicacy of 
feeling to form marriages of interest or 
convenience, without the concurrence of 
their affections and their taste. A woman 
who is determined to be married, and who 
" plays her cards well,'' as the phrase is, 
usually succeeds. But how much more 
estimable and honorable is she who re- 
gards a life-union as too important and 
gacred to be entered into from motives of 
vanity or selfishness. 

To rear families is the ordination of 
Nature, and where it is done conscien- 
tiously it is doubtless the best education 
that men or women can receive. But I 
doubt the truth of the common remark 



that the discharge of these duties makes 



married people less selfish than unmarried 
ones. The selfishness of single women 
doubtless shows itself in more petty forms; 
such as being disturbed by crumbs on the 
carpet, and a litter of toys about the 
house. But fathers and mothers are often 
selfish on a large scale, for the sake of 
advancing the worldly prosperity or social 
condition of their children. Not only is 
spiritual growth frequently sacrificed in 
pursuit of these objects, but principles are 
trampled on, which involve the welfare of 
the whole human race. Within the sphere 
of my own observation, I must confess 
that there is a larger proportion of unmar- 
ried than of married women whose sympa- 
thies are active and extensive. 

I have before my mind tw^o learned 
sisters, familiar with Greek, Latin, and 
French, and who, late in life, acquired a 
knowledge of German also. They spent 
more than sixty years together, quietly 
digging out gold, silver, or iron from the 
rich mines of ancient and modern litera- 
ture, and freely imparting their treasur. s 
wherever they were called for. No mar-" 
ried couple could have been more careful 
of each other in illness, or more accommo- 
dating toward each other's peculiarities; 
yet they were decided individuals ; and 
their talk never wanted 

" An animated No, 
To brush, its surface, and to make it flow." 

Cultivated people enjoyed their conversa- 
tion, which was both wise and racy; a 
steady light of good sense and large infor- 
mation, with an occasional flashing \o, ket 
of not ill-natured satire. Yet their intel- 
lectual acquisitions produced no contempt 
for the customary occupations of women. 
All their friends received tasteful keep- 
sakes of their knitting, netting or crochet- 
ing, and all the poor of the town liaei 
garments of their liandiwork. Neither 



6« 



UNMARRIED WOMEN. 



their sympathies nor their views were 
narrowed by celibacy. Early education 
had taught them to reverence everything 
that was established ; but with this rever- 
ence they mingled a lively interest in aU 
the great progressive questions of the day. 
Their ears were open to the recital of 
everybody's troubles and everybody's joys. 
On New Year's day, children thronged 
round them for books and toys, and every 
poor person's face lighted up as they ap- 
proached; for they were sure of kindly 
inquiries and sympathizing words from 
them, and their cloaks usually opened to 
distribute comfortable slippers, or warm 
stockings of their own manufacture. 
When this sisterly bond, rendered so 
beautiful by usefulness and culture, was 
dissolved by death, the survivor said of 
her who had departed : " During all her 
illness she leaned upon me as a child upon 
its mother; and O, how blessed is now the 
consciousness that I never disappointed 
her ! " This great bereavement was borne 
with calmness, for loneliness was cheered 
by hope of reunion. On the anniversary 
of her loss the survivor wrote to me : "" I 
find a growing sense of familiarity with 
the unseen world. It is as if the door 
were invitingly left ajar, and the distance 
were hourly diminishing. I never think 
of lier 2S alone. The unusual number of 
departed friends for whom we had recently 
mourned, seem now but an increase to her 
happiness." 

I had two other unmarried friends, as 
devoted to each other, and as tender of each 
other's peculiarities as any wedded couple 
I ever knew. Without being learned, 
they had a love of general reading, which, 
with active charities, made their days pass 
profitably and pleasantly. They had the 
orderly, systematic hal^its coninion to 
sinixlc huli(s, but their sym])athics and 
their views were larger and more liberal 



than those of their married sisters. Their 
fingers were busy for the poor, whom they 
were always ready to aid and comfort, 
irrespective of nation or color. Their 
family affections were remarkably strong, 
yet they had the moral courage to espouse 
the unpopular cause of the slave, in quiet 
opposition to the prejudices of beloved 
relatives. Death sundered this tie when 
both were advanced in years. The de- 
parted one, though not distinguished for 
beauty during her mortal life, had, after 
her decease, a wonderful loveliness, like 
that of an angelic child. It was the out- 
ward impress of her interior life. 

Few marriages are more beautiful or 
more happy than these sisterly unions; 
and the same may be said of a brother and 
sister, whose lives are bound together. 
All lovers of English literature know how 
charmingly united in mind and heart were 
Charles Lamb and his gifted sister; and 
our own poet, Whittier, so dear to the 
people's heart, has a home made lovely by 
the same fraternal relation of mutual love 
and dependence. 

A dear friend of mine, whom it was 
some good man's loss not to have for a 
life-mate, adopted the orphan sons of her 
brother, and reared them with more than 
parental wisdom and tenderness, caring 
for all their physical wants, guiding them 
in precept and example by the most ele- 
vated moral standard, bestowing on them 
the highest intellectual culture, and study- 
ing all branches with them, that she might 
in all things be their companion. 

Nor is it merely in such connections, 
which somewhat resemble wedded life, 
that single women make themselves useful 
and respected. Many remember the store 
kept for so long a time in Boston by Miss 
Ann Bent. 

Her j)arents being poor, she early began 
to support herself by teaching. A relative 



67 



UNMARRIED WOMEN. 



Bubsequently furnished her with goods to 
sell on commission ; and in this new em- 
ployment she manifested such good judg- 
ment, integrity, and general business 
capacity, that merchants were willing to 
trust her to any extent. She acquired a 
handsome property, which she used liber- 
ally to assist a large family of sisters and 
nieces, some of whom she established in 
business similar to her own. No mother 
or grandmother was ever more useful or 
beloved. One of her nieces said ; " I know 
the beauty and purity of my aunt's char- 
acter, for I lived with her forty years, and 
I never knew her to say or do anything 
which might not have been said or done 
before the whole world." 

I am ignorant of the particulars of Miss 
Bent's private history; but doubtless a 
woman of her comely looks, agreeable 
manners, and excellent character, might 
have found opportunities to marry, if that 
had been a paramount object with her. 
She lived to be more than eighty-eight 
years old, universally respected and be- 
loved ; and the numerous relatives, toward 
whom she had performed a mother's part, 
cheered her old age with grateful affection. 

There have also been many instances of 
sinp:le women who have enlivened and 
illustrated their lives by devotion to the 
beautiful arts. Of these none are perhaps 
more celebrated than the Italian Sofonisba 
Angusciola and her two accomplished 
sisters. These three "virtuous gentle- 
women," as Vasari calls them, spent their 
lives together in most charming union. 
All of them had uncommon talent for 
painting, but Sofonisba was the most 
gifted. One of her most beautiful pic- 
tures represents her two sisters playing at 
chess, attended by the faithful old duenna, 
who accompanied them everywhere. This 



admirable artist lived to be old and blind ; 
and the celebrated Vandyke said of her, 
in her later years : " I have learned more 
from one blind old woman in Italy, than 
from all the masters of the art." 

Many single women have also employed 
their lives usefully and agreeably as 
authors. There is the charming Miss 
Mitford, whose writings cheer the soul 
like a meadow of cowslips in the spring- 
time. There is Frederica Bremer, whose 
writings have blessed so many souls. 
There is Joanna Baillie, Maria Edgeworth, 
Elizabeth Hamilton, and our own honored 
Catherine M. Sedgwick, whose books have 
made the world wiser and better than they 
found it. 

I am glad to be sustained in my opin- 
ions on this subject by a friend whose own 
character invests single life with peculiar 
dignity. In a letter to me, she says : " I 
object to having single women called a 
class. They are individuals^ differing in 
the qualities of their characters, like other 
human beings. Their isolation, as a gen- 
eral thing, is the result of unavoidable 
circumstances. The Author of Nature 
doubtless intended that men and women 
should live together. But, in the present 
state of the world's progress, society has, 
in many respects, become artificial in pro- 
portion to its civilization ; and conse- 
quently the number of single women must 
constantly increase. If humanity were in 
a state of natural, healthy development, 
this would not be so; for young people 
would then be willing to begin married 
life with simplicity and frugality, and real 
happiness would increase in proportion to 
the diminution of artificial wants. This 
prospect, however, lies in the future, and 
many generations of single women must 
come and go before it will be realized. 



68 



UNMARRIED WOMEN. 



''But the achievement of character is 
the highest end that can be proposed to 
any human being, and there is nothing 
ia single life to prevent a woman from 
attaining this great object ; on the con- 
trary, it is in many respects peculiarly 
favorable to it. The measure of strength 
in character is the power to conquer cir- 
cumstances when they refuse to co-operate 
with us. The temptations peculiarly 
incident to single life are petty selfish- 
ness, despondency under the suspicion 
of neglect, and ennui from the want of 
interesting occupation. If an ordinary, 
feeble-minded woman is exposed to these 
temptations, she will be very likely to 
yield to them. But she would not be 
greatly different in character, if protected 
by a husband and flanked with children ; 
her feebleness would remain the same, 
and would only manifest itself under new 
forms. 

" Marriage, under favorable circum- 
stances, is unquestionably a promoter of 
human happiness. But mistakes are so 
frequently made by entering thoughtlessly 
into this indissoluble connection, and so 
much wretchedness ensues from want of 
sufficient mental discipline to make the 
best of what cannot be remedied, that most 
people can discover among their acquaint- 
ance as large a proportion of happy single 
women as they can of happy wives. More- 
over, the happiness of unmarried women 
is as independent of mere gifts of fortune, 
as that of other individuals. Indeed, all 
solid happiness must spring from inward 
sources. Some of the most truly contented 
and respectable women I have ever known 
have been domestics, who grew old in one 
family, and were carefully looked after, 
in their declining days, by the children 
of those whom they faithfully served "in 
youth. 

"Most single women might have mar- 
5c 69 



ried, had they seized upon the first oppor- 
tunity that offered; but some unrevealed 
attachment, too high an ideal, or an innate 
fastidiousness, have left them solitary ; 
therefore, it is fair to assume that many 
of them have more sensibility and true 
tenderness than some of their married 
sisters. Those who remain single in con- 
sequence of too much worldly ambition, 
or from the gratification of coquettish 
vanity, naturally swell i\\Q ranks of those 
peevish, discontented ones, who bring dis- 
credit on single life in the abstract. But 
when a delicate gentlewoman deliberately 
prefers passing through life alone, to link- 
ing her fate with that of a man toward 
whom she feels no attraction, why should 
she ever repent of so high an exercise of 
her reason ? This class of women are often 
the brightest ornaments of society. Men 
find in them calm, thoughtful friends, and 
safe confidants, on whose sympathy they 
can rely without danger. In the nursery, 
their labors, being voluntary, are less 
exhausting than a parent's. When the 
weary, fretted mother turns a deaf ear to 
the twenty-times-repeated question, the 
baffled urchins retreat to the indulgent 
aunt, or dear old familiar friend, sure of 
obtaining a patient hearing and a kind 
response. Almost everybody can remem- 
ber some samples of such Penates^ whose 
hearts seem to be too large to be confined 
to any one set of children. 

"Some of my fairest patterns of femi- 
nine excellence have been of the single 
sisterhood. Of those unfortunate ones 
who are beacons, rather than models, I 
cannot recall an individual whose char- 
acter I think would have been materially 
improved by marriage. The faults which 
make a single woman disagreeable would 
probably exist to the same degree if she 
were a wife ; and the virtues which adorn 
her in a state of celibacy would make her 



UNMARRIED WOMEN, 



equally beloved and honored if she were 
married. The human soul is placed here 
for development and progress ; and it is 
capable of converting all circumstances 
into means of growth and advancement. 

" Among my early recollecnons is that 
of a lady of stately presence, who died 
while I was still young, but not till she 
had done much to remove from my mind 
the idea that the name of ^ old maid ' was 
a term of reproach. She was the daugh- 
ter of Judge Russell, and aunt to the late 
Reverend and beloved Dr. Lowell. She 
had been one of a numerous family of 
brothers and sisters, but in my childhood 
was sole possessor of the old family man- 
sion, where she received her friends and 
practised those virtues which gained for 
her the respect of the whole community. 
Sixty years ago, it was customary to speak 
of single women with far less deference 
than it now is ; and I remember being 
puzzled by the extremely respectful man- 
ner in which she was always mentioned. 
If there were difficulties in the parish, or 
if any doubtful matters ^ere under dis- 
cussion, the usual question was ' What is 
Miss Russell's opinion ? ' I used to think 
to myself, * She is an old maid, after ail, 
yet people always speak of her as if she 
were some great person.' 

" Miss Burleigh was another person of 
whom I used to hear much through the 
medium of mutual friends. She resided 
with a married sister in Salem, and was the 
* dear Aunt Susan,' not only of the large 
circle of her own nephews and nieces, but of 
all their friends and favorites. Having 
ample means, she surrounded herself with 
choice books and j^ictures, and such 
objects of art or nature as would entertain 
and instruct young minds. Her stores of 
knowledge were prodigious, and she had 
such a happy way of imparting it, that 
lively boys were glad to leave their play, 



to spend an hour with Aunt Susan, She 
read to her young friends at stated times, 
and made herself perfectly familiar with 
them ; and as they grew older she became 
their chosen confidant. She was, in fact, 
such a centre of light and warmth, that no 
one could approach her sphere without 
being conscious of its vivifying influence. 
" * Aunt Sarah Stetson,' another single 
lady, was a dear and honored friend of my 
own. She was of masculine size and stat- 
ure, gaunt and ungainly in the extreme. 
But before she had uttered three sentences, 
her hearers said to themselves, *■ Here is a 
wise woman ! ' She was the oldest of 
thirteen children, early deprived of their 
father, and she bore the brunt of life 
from youth upward. She received only 
such education as was afforded by the 
public school of an obscure toAvn seventy 
years ago. To add to their scanty means 
of subsistence, she learned the tailor's 
trade. In process of time, the other 
children swarmed off from the parental 
hive, the little farm was sold, and she 
lived alone with her mother. She built 
a small cottage out of her own earnings, 
and had the sacred pleasure of taking her 
aged parent to her own home, and min- 
istering with her own hands to all her 
wants. For sixteen years, she never spent 
a night from home, but assiduously devoted 
herself to the discharge of this filial duty, 
and to the pursuance of her trade. Yet 
in the midst of this busy life, she man- 
aged to become respectably familiar with 
English literature, especially with history. 
Whatever she read, she derived from it 
healthful aliment for the gro\^i:h of her 
mental powers. She was full of wise 
maxims and rules of life ; not doled out 
with see-saw prosiness, but with strong 
common sense, rich and racy, and fre- 
quently flavored with the keenest satire. 
She had a flashing wit, and wonderful 



70 



UNMARRIED WOMEN. 



power of detectiDg shams of all sorts. 
Her religious opinions were orthodox, and 
she was the embodiment of the Puritan 
character. She was kindly in her feelings, 
and alive to ev^ery demonstration of affec- 
tion, but she had a granite firmness of 
principle, which rendered her awful 
toward deceivers and trangressors. All 
the intellectual people of the town sought 
her company with avidity. The Unitarian 
minister and his family, a wealthy man, 
who happened to be also the chief scholar 
in the place, and the young people gener- 
ally, took pleasure in resorting to Aunt 
Sarah's humble home, to minister to her 
simple wants, and gather up her words of 
wisdom. Her spirit was bright and cheer- 
ful to the last. One of her sisters, 
who had been laboring sixteen years 
as a missionary among the southwestern 
Indians, came to Kew England to visit 
the scattered members of her family. 
After seeing them in their respective 
homes, she declared : * Sarah is the most 
light-hearted of them all ; and it is only 
by her fireside that I have been able to 
forget past hardships in merry peals of 
laughter.' 

" During my last interview w4th Aunt 
Sarah, when she was past seventy years of 
age, she said, * I have lived very agreeably 
single ; but if I become infirm, I suppose 
I shall feel the want of life's nearest ties.' 
In her case, however, the need was of 
short duration, and an affectionate niece 
supplied the place of a daughter. 

" Undoubtedly, the arms of children 
and grandchildren form the most natural 
and beautiful cradle for old age. But 
loneliness is often the widow's portion, as 
well as that of the single woman ; and 
parents are often left solitary by the death 
or emigration of their children. 

" I am tempted to speak also of a living 
friend, now past her sixtieth year. She is 



71 



different from the others, but this differ- 
ence only confirms my theory that the 
mind can subdue all things to itself. This 
lady is strictly feminine in all her habits 
and pursuits, and regards the needle as the 
chief implement of w^oman's usefulness. 
If the Dorcas labors performed by her one 
pair of hands could be collected into a 
mass, out of the wear and waste of half a 
century, they would form an amazing pile. 
In former years, when her health allowed 
her to circulate among numerous family 
connections, her visits were always wel- 
comed as a jubilee ; for every dilapidated 
wardrobe was sure to be renovated by 
Aunt Mary's nimble fingers. She had 
also a magic power of drawing the little 
ones to herself. Next to their fathers and 
mothers, she w^as the best beloved. The 
influence which her loving heart gained 
over them in childhood increased with 
advancing years. She is now the best and 
dearest friend of twenty or thirty nephews 
and nieces, some of whom have families 
of their own. 

"A large amount of what is termed 
mother- wit, a readiness at repartee, and 
quickness in seizing unexpected associa- 
tions of words or ideas, rendered her gen- 
erally popular in company ; but the deep 
cravings of her heart could never be sat- 
isfied with w^hat is termed success in so- 
ciety. The intimate love of a few valued 
friends was what she always coveted, and 
never failed to win. For several years 
she has been compelled by ill health to 
live entirely at home. There she now is, 
fulfilling the most important mission of 
her whole beneficent life, training to virtue 
and usefulness five motherless children of 
her brother. Feeble and emaciated, she 
lives in her chamber surrounded by these 
orphans, who now constitute her chief liold 
on life. She shares all their pleasures, is 
the depository of their little griefs, and 



UNMARRIED WOMEN. 



anites in herself the relations of aunt, 
mother, and grandmother. She has faith 
to believe that her frail thread of existence 
will be proloEged for the sake of these 
little ones. The world still comes to her, 
in her seclusion, through a swarm of hum- 
ble friends and dependants, who find them- 
selves comforted and ennobled by the 
benignant patience with which she listens 
to their various experiences, and gives 
them kindly, sympathizing counsel, more 
valuable to them than mere pecuniary aid. 
Her spirit of self-abnegation is carried 
ahnost to asceticism ; but she reserves her 
severity wholly for herself; toward others 
she is prodigal of indulgence. This goodly 
temple of a human soul was reared in 
these fair proportions upon a foundation 
of struggles, disappointments, and bereave- 
ments. A friend described her serene 
exterior as a 'placid, ocean-deep, manner' ; 
under it lies a silent history of trouble and 
trial, converted into spiritual blessiugs. 



" The conclusion of the matter in my 
mind is, that a woman may make a re- 
spectable appearance as a wife, with a 
character far less noble than is necessary 
to enable her to lead a single life with 
usefulness and dignity. She is sheltered 
and concealed behind her husband; but 
the unmarried woman must rely upon her- 
self; and she lives in a glass house, open 
to the gaze of every passer-by. To the 
feeble-minded, marriage is almost a neces- 
sity, and if wisely formed it doubtless 
renders the life of any woman more 
happy. But happiness is not the sole 
end and aim of this life. We are sent 
here to build up a character; and sen- 
sible women may easily reconcile them- 
selves to a single life, since even its 
disadvantages may be converted into 
means of development of all the fac- 
ulties with which God has endowed 
them. 

L, MARIA CMILD. 




^ WEDDED LIFE. 



M 



'EN and women, and especially young people, do not know that it takes years 
to marry completely two hearts, even of the most loving and well assorted; 
but nature allows no sudden change. We ascend very gradually from the 
cradle to the summit of life. Marriage is gradual — a fraction of us at a 
time. A happy wedlock is a long falling in Jove. I know young persons think that 
love belongs only to the brown hair, and plump, round, crimson cheeks. So it does 
for its beginning. But the golden marriage is a part of love which the bridal day 
knows nothing of. Youth is the tassel and silken flower of love ; age is the full corn, 
ripe and solid in the ear. Beautiful is the morning of love, with its prophetic crim- 
son, violet, purple, and gold, with its hopes of days that are to come. Beautiful also 
is the evening of Jove with its glad remembrances and its rainbow side turned towards 
heaven as well as earth. Young people marry their opposites in temper and general 
character, and such a marriage is commonly a good match. They do it instinctively. 
The young man does not say, " My black eyes require to be wed Avith blue, and my over- 
vehemence requires to be a little modified with somewhat of dullness and reserve." 
When those opposites come together to be wed, they do not know it ; each thinks the 
other just like itself. 

Old people never marry their opposites ; they marry their similars, and from cal- 
culation. Each of these two arrangements is very proper. In their journey, these 
two young opposites will fall out by the way a great many times, and both get out of 

the road ; but each will charm 
the other back again, and by 
and by they will be agreed as to 
the place they will go to and 
the road they will go by, and 
become reconciled. The man 
will be nobler and larger for 
being associated with so much 
humanity unlike himself, and 
she will be a nobler woman for 
having manhood beside her that 
seeks to correct her deficiencies 
and supply her with what she 
lacks, if the diversity be not too 
great, and there be real piety 
and love in their hearts to be^in 
with. The old bridegroom, hav- 
ing a much shorter 
journey to make, 
must associate him- 
self with one like 
himself. A perfect 
and compk'te mar- 
;r:d riage is perliaps as 




WEDDED LIFE. 

rare as perfect personal beauty. Men and women are married fractionally; now a 
small fraction, then a large fraction. Yerj few are married totally, and then only 
I think, after some forty or fifty years of gradual approach and experiment. Such J 
large and sweet fruit is a complete marriage that it needs a very long summer to 
ripen m, and then a long winter to mellow it. But a real, happy marriage of love and 
judgment between a noble man and woman is one of the things so very hand'^ome 
that, if the sun were, as the Greek poets fabled, a god, he might stop the world in 
order to feast his eyes on such a spectacle. 



-^>cr::. 




;:;I:3^ 



IMATRIJVrONY 



IT is pleasant to contemplate the asso- burdens are delightful. Marriage is the 
ciations clustering around the wed- mother of the world, and preserves king- 
ding morn. It is the happiest hour doms, and fills cities and churches, and 
of human life, and breaks upon the young heaven itself. Celibacy, like the fly in 
heart like a gentle spring upon the flowers the heart of the apple, dwells in perpetual 
of earth. It is the hour of bounding, sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined 
joyous expectancy, when the ardent spirit, and dies in singularity; but marriage 
arming itself with bold hope, looks with like the useful bee, builds a house, and 
undaunted mien upon the dark and ter- gathers honey from every flower, and 



rible future. It is the hour when thouo:ht 
borrows the livery of goodness, and 
humanity looking from its tenement, 
across the broad common of life, shakes 



labors, and unites into societies and 
republics, and sends out colonies, and 
feeds the world with delicacies, and obeys 
its king, and keeps order, and exercises 



off Its heavy load of sordidness, and gladly many virtues, and promotes the interests 



swings to its shoulders the light burden 
of love and kindness. It is the heart's 
hour, full of blissful contemplation, rich 
promises, and the soul's happy revels. 
We cordially echo the sentiment, *^ Happy 
morn, garmented with the human virtues, 
it shows life to the eye, lovely, as if 
" Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars." 
Marriage has in it less of beauty, but 
more of safety than the single life ; M 
hath no more ease, but less danger ; it is 
more merry and more sad ; it is fuller of 
sorrows and fuller of joys; it lies under 
more burdens, but it is supported by all the 
strengths of love and charity, and those 



of mankind, and is that state of good to 
which God hath designed the present 
constitution of the world. 



© 



HE treasures of the deep are not so 
precious 

As are the concealed comforts of a 
man 
Locked up in woman's love. I scent the 

air 
Of blessing when I come but near the 

house. 
What a delicious breath marriage sends 

forth. 
The violet bed's not sweeter! 

M I D D L E T O N . 



74 



WITHOUT AND WITHIN 



THE night is dark, and the ^vinter winds 
Go stabbing about witli their icy 
spears ; 
The s]iarp liail rattles against the panes, 

And melts on my cheeks like tears. 

'Tis a terrible night to be out of doors, 

But some of us must be, early and late ; 
We needn't ask who, for don't we know 
It has all been settled by Fate ? 

Not woman, but man. Give woman her 
flowers, 
Her dresses, her jewels, or what she de- 
mands ; 
The work of the world must be done by man, 
Or why has he brawny hands ? 

As I feel my way in the dark and cold, 

I think of the chambers warm and bright — 
The nests where these delicate birds of ours 
Are folding their wangs to-night ! 

Through the luminous windows, above and 
below, 
I catch a glimpse of the life they lead: 
Some sew, some sing, others dress for the ball, 
While others (fair students) read. 

Tliere's the little lady w^ho bears my name — 
She sits at my table now, pouring her tea; 
Does she think of me as I hurry home, 
Hungry and wet ? Not she. 

She helps herself to the sugar and cream 

In a thoughtless, dreamy, nonchalant way ; 
Her hands are w^hite as the virgin rose 

That she wore on her w^edding-day. 

My stubbed fingers are stain'd with ink — 

The badge of the ledger, the mark of trade ; 
But the money I give her is clean enough, 
In spite of the w^ay it is made. 

I wear out my life in the counting-room, 
Over day-book and cash-book, Bought and 
Sold; 
My brain is dizzj' with anxious thought, 
My skin is as sallow as gold. 

How does she keep the roses of youth 

Still fresh in her cheeks ? My roses are flown. 
It lies in a nutshell : why do I ask ? 
A woman's life is her own. 

She gives me a kiss when we part for the day, 
Then goes to her nuisic, blithe as a bird ; 



She reads it at sight, and the language too, 
Though I know never a word. 

She sews — a little ; makes collars and sleeves; 
Or embroiders me slippers (always too 
small) ; 
Nets silken j)urses (for me to fill) — 
Often does nothing at all 

But dream in her chamber, holding a flower, 
Or reading my 1 :tters (she'd better read 
me) ! 
Even now, while I am freezing Avith cold, 
She is cozily sipping her tea. 

If I ever reach home I shall laugh aloud 

At the sight of a roaring fire once more ; 
She must wait, I think, till I thaw myself, 
For the usual kiss at the door. 

I'll have with my dinner a bottle of port. 

To warm up my blood and soothe my mind ; 
Then a little mu«ic, for even I 

Like music — when I have dined. 

I'll smoke a pipe in the easy-chair. 

And feel her behind me patting my head ; 
Or, drawing the little one on my knee. 
Chat till the hour for bed. 



n. 
Will he never come? I have watch'd for him 
Till the misty panes are roughen'd with 
sleet ; 
I can see no more : shall I never hear 

The Avelcome sound of his feet? 

I think of him in the lonesome night, 
Tramping along with a weary tread. 
And wish he were here by the cheery fire, 
Or I were there in his stead. 

I sit by the grate, and hark for his step. 

And stare in the fire with a troubled mind ; 
The glow of the coals is bright in my face. 
But my shadow is dark behind. 

I think of woman, and think of man. 

The tie that binds, and the wrongs that part, 
And long to utter in burning words 

What I feel to-night in my heart. 

No weak complaint of the man I love. 

No praise of myself or my sisterhood ; 
But — something that women understand. 
By men never understood. 



75 



WITHOUT AND WITHIN, 



*^s ir natures jar in a thousand things ; 

Little matter, alas ! who is right or wrong. 
She goes to the wall. " She is weak I " they say ; 
It is that that makes them strong. 

But grant us weak (as in truth we are 

In our love for them),* they should make us 
strong ; 
But do they ? Will they ? " Woman is Weak ! " 
Is the burden still of their song. 

Wherein am I weaker than Arthur, pray? 

He has, as he should, a sturdier frame, 
And he labors early and late for me ; 
But I — I could do the same. 

My hands are willing, my brain is clear, 

The world is wide, and the workers few ; 

But the work of the world belongs to man ; 

There is nothing for woman to do. 

Ye^, she has the holy duties of home, 

A husband to love, and children to bear ; 
The softer virtues, the social arts — 
In short, a life without care. 

So our masters sa}'. But what do they know 
Of our lives and feelings when they are 
away ? 
Our household duties, our petty tasks, 

The nothings that waste the day ? 

Nay, what do they care ? 'Tis enough for them 
That their homes are pleasant ; they seek 
their ease ; 
One takes a wife to flatter his pride ; 
Another, to keep his keys. 

They say they love us ; perhaps they do, 

In a masculine way, as they love their wine; 
But the soul of a woman needs something 
more, 
Or it suffers at times like mine. 

Kot that Arthur is ever unkind 

In word or deed, for he loves me well ; 
But I fear he thinks me weaK as the rest — 
(And I maybe: who can tell?) 

I should die if he changed or loved me less, 

For I live at best but a restless life ; 
Yet he may, for they say the kindest men 
Grow tired of a sickly wife. 

Oh, love me, Arthur, my lord, my life ! 

If not for my love and my womanly fears. 
At least for your child. But I hear his step- 
He must not find me in tears. 

RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 



Il 



TELL YOUR WIFE. 

F you are in any trouble or quan- 
dary, tell your wife — that is if 
you have one — all about it at once. 
Ten to one her invention will solve 
your difficulty sooner than all your logic. 
The wit of woman has been praised, but 
her instincts are quicker and keener than 
her reason. Counsel with your wife, or 
mother or sister, and be assured, light will 
flash upon your darkness. Women are 
too commonly adjudged as verdant in all 
but purely womanish affairs. No philo- 
sophical students of the sex thus judge 
them. Their intuitions, or insights, are 
the most subtle. In counseling a man to 
tell his wife, ws would go farther, and 
advise him to keep none of his affairs a 
secret from her. Many a home has been 
happily saved, and many a fortune re- 
trieved, by a man's full confidence in his 
" better-half.'^ Woman is far more a seer 
and prophet than man, if she be given a 
fair chance. As a general rule, wives 
confide the minutest of their plans and 
thoughts to their husbands, having no in- 
volvements to screen from them. Why 
not reciprocate, if but for the pleasure of 
meeting confidence with confidence ? We 
are certain that no man succeeds so well 
in the world as he who, taking a partner 
for life, makes her the partner of his pur- 
poses and hopes. What is wrong of his 
impulse or judgment, she will check and 
set right with her almost universally right 
instincts. "Help-meet" was no insignifi- 
cant title as applied to man's companion. 
She is a help-meet to him in every dark- 
ness, difficulty and sorrow of life. And 
what she most craves and most deserves 
is confidence — without which love is never 
free from a shadow. 






76 



THK GOOD WIFE 




jHE heart of man, with whom 
affection is not a name, and 
love a mere passion of the 
hour, yearns toward the quiet 
of a home, as toward the goal 
of his earthly joy and hope. 
And as you fasten there your thought, 
an indulgent, yet dreamy fancy paints the 
loved image that is to adorn it, and to 
make it sacred. 

She is there to bid you — God speed! 
and an adieu, that hangs like music on 
your ear, as you go out to the every-day 
labor of life. At evening, she is there to 
greet you, as you come back wearied with 
day's toil ; and her look so full of glad- 
ness, cheats you of your fatigue ; and she 
steals her arm around you, with a soul of 
welcome, that beams like sunshine on her 
brow and that fills your eye with tears of 
a twin gratitude — to her, and Heaven. 

She is not unmindful of those old- 
fashioned virtues of cleanliness and of 
order which give an air of quiet, and 
which secure content. Your wants are 
all anticipated; the fire is burning brightly; 
the clean hearth flashes under the joyous 
blaze ; the old elbow-chair is in its place. 
Your very unworthinessof all this haunts 
you like an accusing spirit, and yet pen- 
etrates your heart with a new devotion, 
toward the loved one who is thus watch- 
ful of your comfort. 

She is gentle; — keeping your love, as 
she has won it, by a thousand nameless 
and modest virtues, which radiate from 
her whole life and action. She steals 
upon your affections like a summer wind 
breathing softly over sleeping valleys. She 
gains a mastery over your sterner nature, 
by very contrast; and wins you unwit- 
tingly to her lightest wish. And yet her 
wishes are guided by that delicate tact, 



which avoids conflict with your manly 
pride ; she subdues, by seeming to yield. 
By a single soft word of appeal, she robs 
your vexation of its anger ; and with a 
slight touch of that fair hand, and one 
pleading look of that earnest eye, she 
disarms your sternest pride. 

She is kind; — shedding her kindness, 
as Heaven sheds dew. Who indeed 
could doubt it ? — least of all, you who are 
living on her kindness, day by day, as 
flowers live on light ? There is none of 
that officious parade which blunts the 
point of benevolence ; but it tempers 
every action with a blessing. 

If trouble has come upon you, she 
knows that her voice, beguiling you into 
cheerfulness, will allay your fears ; and as 
she draws her chair beside you, she knows 
that the tender and confiding way with 
which she takes your hand, and looks up 
into your earnest face, will drive away 
from your annoyance all its weight. As 
she lingers, leading off your thought with 
pleasant words, she knows well that she 
is redeeming you from care, and soothing 
you to that sweet calm, which such home 
and such wife can alone bestow. 

And in sickness, — sickness that you al- 
most covet for the sympathy it brings, — 
that hand of hers resting on your fevered 
forehead, or those fingers playing with the 
scattered locks, are more full of kindness 
than the loudest vaunt of friends ; and 
when your failing strength will permit no 
more, you grasp that cherished hand, with 
a fullness of joy, of thankfuhiess, and of 
love, which your tears only can tell. 

She is good ; — her hopes live where the 
angels live. Her kindness and gentleness 
are sweetly tempered with that meekness 
and forbearance which are born of Faith. 
Trust comes into her heart as rivers come 



77 



THE GOOD WIFE, 



to tlie sea. And in the dark hours of 
doubt and foreboding, you rest fondly 
upon her buoyant faith, as the treasure of 
your common life; and in your holier 
musings, you look to that frail hand, and 
that gentle spirit, to lead you away from 
the vanities of worldly ambition, to the 
fullness of that joy which the good inherit. 



D. G. MITCHELL 



ADVICE TO YOUNG MARRIED COUPLES. 

BEFORE marriage and afterward, 
let them learn to centre all their 
hopes of real lasting happiness in 
their own fireside; let them cherish the 
faith that in home, and all the virtues 
which the love of home engenders, lies the 
only true source of domestic felicity ; let 
them believe, that round the household gods 
Contentment and Tranquillity cluster in 
their gentlest and most graceful forms; 
and that many weary hunters of happiness 
through the noisy world have learnt this 
truth too late, and found a cheerful spirit 
and a quiet mind only at home, at last. 

How much may depend on the educa- 
tion of daughters, and the conduct of 
mothers — how much of the brightest part 
of our old national character may be per- 
petuated by their wisdom or frittered away 
by their folly — how much of it may have 
been lost already, and how much more 
in danger of vanishing every day — are 
questions too weighty for discussion here, 
but well deserving a little serious consid- 
eration from all young couples, neverthe- 
less. 

To that one young couple, on whose 
bright destiny the thoughts of nations are 
fixed, may Youth look and not in vain, 
for an example. That one couple, blest 
and favored as they are, may they learn, 
that even the glare and glitter of a Court, 



the splendor of a palace, and the pomp 
and glory of a throne, yield in their power 
of conferring happiness to domestic worth 
and virtue. From that one young couple 
may they learn, that the crown of a great 
empire, costly and jeweled though it be, 
gives place in the estimation of a Queen 
to the plain gold ring that links her 
woman's nature to that of tens of thou- 
sands of her humble subjects, and guards 
in her w^oman's heart one secret store of 
tenderness, whose proudest boast shall be 
that it knows no Royalty save Nature's 
own, and no pride of birth but being the 
child of Heaven ! 

So shall the highest couple in the land 
for once, hear the truth, when men throw 
up their caps, and cry with loving shouts — 
God Bless Them ! 



CHARLES DICKENS. 



ARTEYELDE'S CHARACTER OF HIS WIFE. 

ri^HE was a creature framed by love divine 
/^ For mortal love to musen life away 
\»J In pondering her perfections; so un- 
• moved 

Amidst the world's contentions, if they touch'd 
No vital chord nor troubled what she loved, 
Philosophy might look her in the face, 
And like a hermit stooping to the well 
That yields him sweet refreshment, might 

therein 
See but his own serenity reflected 
With a more heavenly tenderness of hue ! 
Yet whilst the world's ambitious empty cares, 
Its small disquietude and insect stings, 
Disturb'd her never ; she was one made up 
Of feminine affections, and her life 
Was one full stream of love from fount to sea. 

HENRY TAYLOR. 



TILL Hymen brought his love — delighted 
hour, 
There dwelt no joy in Eden's rosy bower; 
The world was sad, the garden was a Avild, 
And man, the hermit, sighed, till woman 
smiled. 

CAMPBELL. 



78 



K DSRKEY'5 COUNSEL TO THE NEWLY MSRRIE 




cliirron, liib 
one anod- 
e r ; b a r 
w id one 
a n o d e r ; 
be faithful 

ter one anoder. You hab started on a 
long journey; many rough places am in 
de road; many trubbles will spring up by 
de wayside ; but gwo on hand an' hand 
togedder; lub one anoder, an' no matter 
what come outer you, you will be happy 
— fur lub will sweeten ebery sorrer, light- 
en ebery load, make de sun shine in eben 
de bery cloudiest wedder. I knows it 
will, my children, 'case I'se been ober de 
groun'. Ole Aggy an' I hab trabbled de 
road. Hand iu hand we hab gone ober 
de rocks ; fru de mud ; in de hot burning 
sand ; been out togedder in de cole, an' de 
rain, an' de storm, fur nigh outer forty 
yar, but we hab clung ter one anoder; an' 
fru ebery ting in de bery darkest days, 
de sun ob joy an' peace hab broke fru de 
clouds, an' sent him bressed rays inter our 
hearts. We started jess like two young 
saplin's you's seed a growiu' side by side 
in de woods. At fust we seemed 'way part 
fur de brambles, an' de tick bushes, an' de 
ugly forns — [dem war our bad ways] — 
war atween us ; but lub, like de sun, 
shone down on us, an' we grow'd. AVe 
grow'd till our heads got above de bushes ; 
till dis little branch, an' dat little branch 
— dem war our holy fcelin's — put out 
toward one anoder, an' we come closer an' 
closer togedder. An' douii-h we 'm old 
trees now, an* sometime de wind blow, an 
de storm rage fru de tops, an freaten ter 



moss, will twine ronn* one anoder; soon 
de two ole trees will come togedder, an* 
grow inter one foreber — grow inter one up 
dar in de sky, whar de wind neber '11 blow, 
whar de storm neber '11 beat; whar we 
skill blossom an' bar fruit ter de glory ob 
de Lord, an' in His heabenly kingdom 
foreber! Amen. edmund kirke. 



THE UNREASONABLE HUSBAND. 



^. 



WIFE, domestic, good, and pure, 
Like s;2ai7 should keep within hei 
door ; 



But not like snail, in silver track, 
Place all her w^ardrobe on ker back 1 

A wife should be like echo, true. 
Not speak but when she's spoken to ; 

Yet not like echo, still be heard 
Contending for the final word ! 

Like a town clock a wife should be, 
Keep time and regularity ; 

But not like clock harangue so clear, 
That all the town her voice may hear I 



A KISS AT THE DOOR, 

WE w^ere standing in the doorway, 
My little wife and I : 
The golden sun upon her hair 

Fell down so silently ; 
A small white hand upon my arm, — 

What could I ask for more 
Than the kindly glance of loving eyefij 
As she kissed me at the door? 

I know she loves with all hor heart 

The one who stands beside, 
And the years have been so joyous, 



tear off de limbs, an' ter i)ull up de bery gj^^^.^, ^^.^^ j ^.^^^.^ j^^.^. ^^^.j'^i 



roots, we 'm growin' closer an' closer, an' 
nearer an' nearer togedder ebery day — an' 
soon de ole tops will meet; soon de old 
branches, all cohered ober wid de gray 



M'eVe had so much of happiness 
Since we met in years before, 

But the happiest time of all was when, 
She kissed me at the door. 



79 



A KISS AT THE DOOR. 



Who cares for wealth of land or gold, 

For fame or matchless j^ower? 
It does not give the happiness 

Of just one little hour 
With one who loves me as her life — 

She says she loves me more — 
And I thought she did this morning, 

When she kissed me at the door. 

At times it seems that all the world, 

With all its wealth of gold, 
Is very small and poor indeed. 

Compared with what I hold ; 
And when the clouds hang grim and dark, 

I only think the more 
Of one who waits the coming step 

To kiss me at the door. 

If she lives till age shall scatter 

Its frost upon her head, 
I know she'll love me just the same 

As the morning we were wed ; 
But if the angels call her, 

And she goes to heaven before, 
I shall know her when I meet her, — 

For she'll kiss me at the door. 

THE HUSBAND'S PRAYER. 

/^H ! Thou whose merciful decree 
^^ Hath knit our hearts in bonds of love. 
Our sure defence and safeguard be 
Whate'er our wedded lot may prove. 

Without thy blessing love is vain 
The varied ills of life to bear ; 

But when bestowed few griefs remain 
Beyond affection's healing care. 

Avert from us the spirit's chill. 

Each wandering thought and fickle mood; 
Mould every feeling to thy will, 

Incline our hearts to every good. 

Implanting deep that perfect trust, 

Of love's rich soil the flower most dear; 

Turn all our promised joys to dust, 
But leave that root unwithered here. 



Which stifles wrath with tenderness, 
And melts away the frost of pride. 

Nor let unkindness ever reach. 

Nor harsh unfeeling thoughts impair 

The tenderness of years ; but teach 
Our hearts to bear and to forbear. 

Be ours a unity of mind, 

A unity of sweetest love, 
A unity of faith entwined 

With the dear hope of joys above. 

We know that in our hearts there lies. 
With aU their love, the germ of change; 

The world can break the holiest ties, 
A breath the tenderest thoughts estrange. 

We pray, oh ! God, that grief like this, 
Our earthly course may never see ; 

We'd make our love a lasting bliss, 
By resting all its hopes on thee. 



T 



Blend with our lo\e that gentleness 
Which turns each angry word aside, 



A WIKE). 

HE wife sat thoughtfully turning over 
■ A book inscribed with the school 

girl's name ; 
A tear, one tear, fell hot on the cover 

So quickly closed when her husband came. 

He came, and he went away, it was nothing ; 

With commonplace upon either side ; 
But, just as the sound of the room-door shut- 
ting, 

A dreadful door in her soul stood wide. 

Love she had read of in sweet romances. 
Love that could sorrow, but never fail ; 

Built her own palace of noble fancies, 
All the wide world like a fairy tale. 

Bleak and bitter and utterly doleful. 
Spread to this woman her map of life ; 

Hour after hour she look'd in her soul, full 
Of deep dismay and turbulent strife. 

Face in hands, she knelt on the carpet ; 

The cloud was loosen'd, the storm-rain fell. 
Oh life has so much to wither and warp it, 

One poor heart's day what poet could tell? 

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. 



80 



FEW HAPPY MATCHES. 



SAY, mighty love, and teach my song, 
To whom my sweetest joys belong, 
And who the happy pairs 
Whose yielding heart and joining hands 
Find blessings twisted with their bands, 
To soften all their cares. 

Not the wild herd of nymphs and swains, 
That thoughtless fly into the chains. 

As custom leads the way ; 
If theirs be bliss without design. 
Ivies and oaks may grow and twine, 

And be as blest as they. 

Not sordid souls of earthy mould. 

Who, drawn by kindred charms of gold, 

To chill embraces move ; 
So too rich mountains of Peru 
May rush to wealthy marriage too. 

And make a world of love. 

Not the mad tribe that hell inspires 
With wanton flames ; those raging fires 

The purer bliss destroy. 
On Etna's top let furies wed, 
And sheets of lightning dress the bed, 

T' improve this burning joy. 

Nor the dull pair, whose marble forms, 
None of the melting passions warms. 

Can mingle hearts and hands. 
Logs of greenwood that quench the coals ; 
Are married just like stoic souls. 

With osiers for their bands. 

Not minds of melancholy strain, 
StiU silent, or that still complain, 

Can the dear bondage bless. 
As well may heavenly comforts spring 
From two old lutes with ne'er a string, 
Or none beside the bass. 

Nor can the soft enchantment hold 
To jarring souls of angry mould, 

The rugged and the keen. 
Samson's young foxes might as well 
In bonds of cheerful wedlock dwell, 

With firebrands tied between. 



Nor let the cruel fetters hind 
A gentle to a savage mind : 



For love abhors the sight. 
Loose the fiery tiger from tlie deer; 
For native rage and native fear 

Rise and forbid delight. 

Two kindest souls alone must meet; 
'Tis frienship makes tlie l>ondage sweet, 

And feeds their mutual loves. 
Bright Venus on her rolHng tlirone 
Is drawn by gentlest birds alone. 

And Cupids yoke tlie doves. 

IT LAS ! how light a cause may move 
M Dissension between hearts that love I 
A Hearts that the world in vain has tried, 
And sorrow but more closely tied ; 
That stood the storm when waves were 

rough, 
Yet in a sunny hour fell off". 
Like ships that have gone down at sea. 
When heaven was all tranquilhty I 
A something light as air — a look, 

A word unkind or wrongly taken — 
Oh ! Love that tempests never shook, 

A breath, a touch like this has shaken. 
And ruder words will soon rush in 
To spread the breach that words begin ; 
And eyes forget the gentle ray 
They wore in courtship's smiling day ; 
And voices lose the tone that shed 
A tenderness round all they said ; 
Till fast declining, one by one, 
The sweetnesses of Love are gone. 

THOMAS MOORE. 

LOVE LIGHTENS LABOR. 

A GOOD wife rose from her bod one morn, 
And thought witli a nervous ilrnul 
Of the piles of clothes to be washed, and 
more 
Than a dozen mouths to he fed. 
There's the meals to get for the men in the field, 

Ami the children to fix away 
To school, and the milk to he skimmed and 
cliurncd ; 
And all to be done this day. 

It had rained in the ni.uht, and all the wood 
Was wet as it could he ; 



81 



LOVE LIGHTENS LABOR. 



There were puddings and pies to bake besides 

A loaf of cake for tea. 
And the day was hot, and her aching head 

Throbbed wearily as she said, 
" If maidens but knew what good wives know, 

They would not be in haste to iced /" 

"Jennie, what do you think I told Ben 
Brown?" 

Called the farmer from the well ; 
And a flush crept up to his bronzed brow, 

And his eyes half bashfully fell ; 
"It was this," he said, and coming near 

He smiled, and stooping down. 
Kissed her cheek—" 'twas this : that you were 
the best 

And the dearest wife in town ! " 

The farmer went 1 uack to the field, and the wife 

In a smiling, absent way 
Sang snatches of tender little songs 

She'd not sung for many a day. 
And the i)sm in her head was gone, and the 
clothes 

Were whire as the foam of the sea; 
Her bread was light, and her butter was sweet 

And as golden as it could be. 

" Just think," the children all cried in a breath, 

"Tom Wood has run off to sea ! 
He wouldn't, I know, if he'd only had 

As happy a home as we." 
The night came down, and the good wife 
smiled 

To herself, as she softly said : 
" 'Tis so sweet to labor for those we love — 

It's not strange that maids will wed!" 



THE ABSENT WIFE. 

y I ^IS Morn :- the sea-breeze seems to 
I bring 

Joy, health, and freshness on its 
wing ; 
Bright flow^ers, to me all strange and new, 
Are glittering in the early dew, 
And perfumes rise irom every grove, 
As incense to the clouds that move 
Like spirits o'er yon welkin clear: 
But I am sad — thou art not here ! 

'Tis Noon : — a calm, unbroken sleep 
Is on the blue waves of the deej) ; 
A soft haze, like a fairy dream, 



Is floating over wood and stream ; 
And many a broad magnolia flower. 
Within its shadowy woodland bower, 
Is gleaming like a lovely star : 
But I am sad — thou art afar ! 

"Tis Eve : — on earth the sunset skies 
Are painting their own Eden dyes ; 
The stars come down, and trembling glo"vy 
Like blossoms on the waves below, 
And, like an unseen spirit, the breeze 
Seems lingering 'midst these orange trees, 
Breathing its music round the spot : 
But I am sad — I see thee not ! 

'Tis Midnight : — wdth a soothing spell, 
The far tones of the ocean swell, 
Soft as a mother's cadence mild. 
Low bending o'er her sleeping child; 
And on each w^andering breeze are heard 
The rich notes of the mocking-bird. 
In many a wild and wondrous lay : 
But I am sacl — thou art aAvay ! 

I sink in dreams : — low, sweet, and clear. 
Thy ow^n dear voice is in my ear ; 
Around my neck thy tresses twine — 
Thy own loved hand is clasped in mine — 
Thy own soft lip to mine is pressed — 
Thy head is pillow^ed on my breast : — 
Oh ! I have all my heart holds dear, 
And I am happy — thou art here ! 

GEORGE DENNISON PRENTICE. 



THRICE blessed they that master so their 
blood- 
But earthly happier is the rose distilled, 
Than that which, withering on the virgin 

thorn, 
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness. 

S H AK ESPE ARE . 



CHOICE OF A WIFE. 

IN choice of wife prefer the modest, chaste. 
Lilies are fair in show but foul in smell ; 
The sweetest looks by age are soon defaced. 
Then choose thy wife by wit and loving well. 
Who brings thee wealth and many fi^ults withal, 
Presents thee honey nrixed with bitter gall. 



D. LODGE. 



82 



A HOME PICTURE. 




EN Fisher had finished his hard day's work. 

And he sat at his cotta.^e door; 
His good wife, Kate, sat by his side, 

And the moon-Ught danced on tlie floor — 
The moon-hght danced on the cottage floor, 

Her beams were clear and bright 
As when he and Kate, twelve years before, 

Talk'd love in her mellow light. 

Ben Fisher had never a pipe of clay, 

And never a dram drank he ; 
So he loved at home with his wife to stay. 

And they chatted right merrily ; 
Right merrily chatted they on, the while 
Her babe slept on her breast, 
While a chubby rogue, with rosy smile, 
On his father's knee found rest. 



Ben told her how fast the potatoes grew, 

And the corn in the lower field ; 
And the wheat on the hill was grown to seed> 

And promised a glorious yield : — 
A glorious yield in the harvest time. 

And his orchard was doing fair ; 
His sheep and his stock were in their prime, 

His farm all in good repair. 

Kate said that her garden looked beautiful. 

Her fowls and her calves were fat ; 
That the butter that Tommy that morning 
churned, 

Would buy him a Sunday hat ; 
That Jenny, for Pa, a new shirt had made, 

And 'twas done too by the rule ; 
That Neddy, the garden, could nicely spade ; 

And Ann was ahead at school. 

Ben slowly raised his toil-worn hand 
Through his locks of grayish brown — 

"I tell you, Kate, what I think," said he, 
"We're the happiest folks in town." 



" I know," said Kate, " that we all work hard- 
Work and health go together, I've found; 

For there's Mrs. Bell does not work at all, 
And she's sick the whole year round. 

" They're worth their thousands, so people say, 

But I ne'er saw them happy yet ; 
'Twould not be me that would take their gold, 

And live in a constant fret ; 
My humble home has a light within, 

Mrs. Bell's gold could not buy. 
Six healthy children, a merry heart, 

And a husband's love-lit eye." 

I fancied a tear was in Ben's eye — 

The moon shone brighter and clearer, 
I could not tell why the man should cry, 

But he hitched up to Kate still nearer; 
He lean'd his head on her shoulder there, 

And he took her hand in his — 
I guess — (though I look'd at the moon just 
then,) 

That he left on her lips a kiss. 

FRANCIS DANA GAGE. 



'I 



THREE LOVES IN A LIFE, 

LOVE '— ' And I love '—'And I love, too'— 
They all loved well, and they loved 
but one. 
Each heart was hers, and each heart was true — 

By which shall she, the beloved, be won ? 
Strong on each was her gentle thrall! 
Oh ! how dear was she held by all ! 

The first was a youth in opening life ; 
And he was charmed with her beauty rare, 



With the face and form of his fair young wife, 
With her sweet blue eye and her silkeu 
hair. 
Gazing then on her charms with pride. 
Oh ! how dear was his lovely bride ! 

The next had lived to his manhood's primel 
And he admired all her thoughts 8o wise; 

How gracefully, at fit place and time, 
Counsels sage to h«^r lips would rise. 

Her woman's wit would silence strife — • 

Oh ! how dear wa3 his prudent wife I 



83 



THREE LOVES IN A LIFE. 



The last is an older, life-worn man ; 

And he delights in her tender heart 
Which lo\eth as only woman's can. 

And cheers him with woman's neaven- 
taught art. 
This loving heart is all his own — 
Oh ! how dear has his fond wife grown ! 

In youth I saw but a maiden fair ; 

And finding beauty I sought no more, 
But loved and wedded as youth will dare 

And little knew of the prize I bore. 
Proud was I 'midst my fellow-men, 
Dear to me was my young wife then. 

But as life advanced and cares came thick — 
On every side came pressing round, 

Till my wearied heart grew faint and sick — 
Ever her at my side I found, 

With words of counsel wise and free ; 

Dearer still was she then to me. 

Her hair is grey, and her sweet blue eyes, 
Though loving still, are no longer bright ; 

And I list not now for her thoughts so wise ; 
But far stronger ties our hearts unite. 

Dear through life has she ever been ; 

Dearest now at its close serene. 



MAN'S LOVE. 

WHEN woman's eye grows dull, 
And her cheek paleth, 
When fades the beautiful, 
Then man's love faileth ; 
He sits not beside her chair, 

Clasps not her fingers, 
Twines not the damp hair 
That o'er her brow lingers. 

He comes but a moment in, 

Though her eye lightens, 
Though her cheek, pale and thin. 

Feverishly brightens ; 
He stays but a moment near. 

When that flash fadeth, 
Though true affection's tear 

Her soft eyelid shadeth. 

He goes from her chamber straight 
Into life's jostle, 



He meets at the very gate 

Business, and bustle ; 
He thinks not of her within. 

Silently sighing, 
He forgets in that noisy din 

That she is dying ! 

And when her young heart is still, 

What though he mourneth, 
Soon from his sorrow chill 

Wearied he turneth ; 
Soon o'er her buried head 

Memory's light sitteth. 
And the true-hearted dead 

Thus man forgetteth. 

MARY ANNE BROWNE, 



WOMAN'S LOVE. 

WHEN man is waxing frail, 
And his hand is thin and 
weak, 
And his lips are parched and pale. 
And wan and white his cheek, 
Oh, then doth woman prove 
Her constancy and love ! 

She sitteth by his chair. 

And holds his feeble hand, 
She watcheth ever there 

His wants to understand ; 
His yet unspoken will 
She hasteneth to fulfil. 

She leads him where the moon 

Is bright o'er dale or hill, 
And all things, save the tune 

Of the honey bees, are still, , 

Into the garden bowers 
To sit 'midst herbs and flowers. 

And when he goes not there. 
To feast on breath and bloom. 

She brings the posy rare 
Into his darken'd room. 

And 'neath his weary head 

The pillow smooth doth spreado 



84 



IVOMAN'S LOVE, 



Until the hour wh'Mi d < ,'ith 

His lamp of lifo df jii dim, 
She never wearieth- 

She never leavetl him ; 
Still near him nig> tand day. 
She meets his eyf alway. 

And when hi? trial's o'er, 
And the \x.d is on his breast, 

Deep in her oosom's core 
Lie sorroAvs unexpressed ; 

Her tears, her sighs, are weak, 

Her settled grief to speak. 

And though there may arise 

Balm for her spirit's pain, 
And though her quiet eyes 

May sometimes smile again ; 
Still, still she must regret, — 
She never can forget. 

MARY ANNE BROWNE. 



THE EXILE TO HIS WIFE. 

GOME to me, dearest, I'm lonely without 
thee, 
Day-time and night-time, I'm thinking 
about thee ; 
Kight-time and day-time, in dreams I behold 

thee; 
Unwelcome the waking which ceases to fold 

thee. 
Come to me, darUng, my sorrows to lighten ; 
Come in thy beauty to bless and to brighten ; 
Come in thy womanhood, meekly and lowly, 
Come in thy lovingness, queenly and holy. 

Swallows will flit round the desolate ruin, 
Telling of spring and its joyous renewing, 
And thoughts of thy love, and its manifold 

treasure. 
Are circling my heart with a promise of 

pleasure. 
O Spring of my spirit! O May of my bosom ! 
Shine out on my soul, till it bourgeon and 

blossom ; 
The waste of my life has a rose-root within it. 
And thy fondness alone to the sunshine can 

win it. 

6c 85 



Figure that moves like a song through the 

even; 
Features lit up by a reflex of heaven ; 
Eyes like the skies of poor Erin, our mother, 
Where shadow and sunshine are chasing each 

other ; 
Smiles coming seldom, but childlike and 

simple, 
Planting in each rosy cheek a sweet dimple;-^ 
Oh, thanks to the Saviour, that even 

seeming 
Is left to the exile to brighten his dreaming! 

You have been glad when you knew I was 

gladden 'd ; 
Dear, are you sad now to hear I am sadden'd? 
Our hearts ever answer in tune and in time, 

love. 
As octave to octave, and rhyme unto rhyme, 

love : 
I cannot weep but your tears will be flowing. 
You cannot smile but my cheek will be glowing; 
I would not die without you at my side, love ; 
You will not linger when I shall have died, 

love. 

Come to me, dear, ere I die of my sorrow. 
Rise on my gloom like the sun of to-morrow ; 
Strong, swift, and fond as the words which I 

speak, love. 
With a song on your lip and a smile on your 

cheek, love. 
Come, for my heart in your absence is weary, — 
Haste, for my spirit is sicken'd and dreary, — 
Come to the arms which alone should caress 

thee. 
Come to the heart that is throbbing to press 

thee ! 

JOSEPH BRENAN 



THE happiness of life is made up of 
minute fractions, the little soon for- 
gotten charities of a kiss or a smile, a 
kind look, a heartfelt compliment, and 
the countless infinitestimals of pleasurable 
thought and genial feeling. 



COLERI DGE. 



IF thou have a fair wife and a poor one ; 
if thine own estate be not great, assure 
thyself that Love abidoth not with 
want; for she is the companion of plenty 
and honor. 



IBID. 



THE OLD WEDDING-RING. 



The device : Two hearts united. 
The motto: 'Dear love of mine, my heart is thine.' 

I LIKE that ring — that ancient ring, 
Of massive form, and virgin gold, 
As firm, as free from base alloy, 

As were the sterling hearts of old. 
I likest — for it wafts me back, 

Far, far along the stream of time. 
To other men, and other days. 
The men and days of deeds sublime. 

But most I like it as it tells 

The tale of well-requited love ; 
How faithful fondness persevered. 

And youthful faith disdain'd to rove — 
How warmly he his suit preferr'd, 

Though she, unpitying, long denied. 
Till, soften'd and subdu'd at last, 

He won 'his fair and blooming bride.* 
How, till the appointed day arrived, 

They blamed the lazy-footed hours — 
How then the white-robed maiden train 

Strew'd their glad way with freshest flowers — 
And how, before the holy man, 

They stood in all their j^outhful pride, 
And spoke those words, and vow'd those vows, 

Which bind the husband to his bride. 

All this it tells ; the jjiiR-hted troth — 

The gift of every earthly thing — 
The hand in 'hand — the heart in heart: 

For this I like that ancient ring. 
I like its old and quaint device ; 

* Two blended hearts,' though time may wear 
them, 
No mortal change, no mortal chance, 

'Till death' shall ere in sunder tear them. 

Year after year, 'neath sun and storm, 

Their hope in heaven, their trust in God, 
In changeless, heartfelt, holy love, 

These two the w^orld's rough pathway trod. 
Age might impair their youthful fires, 

Their strength might fail, 'mid life's bleak 
weather ; 
Still hand in hand they travell'd on — 

Kind souls ! they slumber now together. 

I like its simple poesy too : 

' Thine own dear love, this heart is thine ! * 
Thine, when the dark storm howls along, 

As when the cloudless sunbeams shine. 



'This heart is thine, mine own dear love ' 
Thine, and thine only, and for ever ; 

Thine, till the spring of life shall fail ; 
Thine, till the chords of life shall sever. 

Remnant of days departed long, 

Emblem of plighted truth unbroken, 

Pledge of devoted faithfulness. 
Of heartfelt, holy love the token: 

What varied feelings round it cling ! — 

For these I like that ancient ring. 

GEO. W. DOANS. 



THIRTY-FIVE. 

§FT in danger, yet alive, 

We come to thirty-five ; 
Long may better years arrive, 
Better years than thirty-five, 
Could philosophers contrive 
Life to stop at thirty-five. 
Time his hours should never drive 
O'er the bounds of thirty- five. 
High to soar, and deep to dive, 
Nature gives at thirty-five. 
Ladies, stock and tend your hive, 
Trifle not at thirty-five ; 
For, however we boast and strive, 
Life declines from thirty-five : 
He that ever hopes to thrive 
Must begin by thirty-five ; 
And all who wisely wish to wive ■ 
Should not delay at thirty-five. 

JOHNSON. 



A QUESTION. 



DID I but purpose to embark with thee 
On the smooth surface of a summer's 
sea. 
While gentle zephyrs blow with prosperous 

gales. 
And fortune's favors fill the swelling srvils. 
But wouid forsake the ship and make the 

shore 
When the winds whistle and tlie tempests 
roar ? 

MATTHEW PRYOR 



86 



m THE ^ATIFE. m 



(f 



IHAYE often had occasion to remark 
the fortitude with which women sus- 
tain the most overwhelming reverses 
of fortune. These disasters which break 
down the spirit of a man, and prostrate 
him in the dust, seem to call forth all the 
energies of the softer sex, and give such 
intrepidity and elevation to their character, 
that at times, it approaches to sublimity. 

Nothing can be more touching than to 
behold a soft and tender female, who had 
been all weakness and dependence, and 
alive to every trivial roughness, while 
treading the prosperous paths of life, sud- 
denly rising in mental force to be the 
comforter and support of her husband 
under misfortune, and abiding, with un- 
shrinking firmness, the bitterest blast of 
adversity. 

As the vine, which has long twined its 
graceful foliage about the oak and been 
lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the 
hardy plant is riftrd by the thunderbolt, 
cling round it with its caressing tendrils 
and bind up its shattered boughs, so is it 
beautifully ordered by Providence that 
woman, who is the mere dependent and 
ornament of man in his happier hours, 
should be his stay and solace when smit- 
ten with sudden calamity ; winding her- 
self into the rugged recesses of his nature, 
tenderly supporting the drooping head 
and binding up the broken heart. 

I was once congratulating a friend who 
had around him a blooming family knit 
together in the strongest affection. ^^ I 
can wish you no better lot,'^ said he, with 
enthusiasm, *^ tlian to have a wife and 
children. If you are prosperous, there 
they are to share your prosperity ; if 
otherwise, there they are to comfort you.'^ 

And, indeed, I have observed tliat a 
lO^^rried man falling into misfortune is 



more apt to retrieve his situation in the 
world than a single one ; partly because 
lie is more stimulated to exertion by the 
necessities of the helpless and beloved 
beings who depend upon him for subsis- 
tence ; but chiefly because his spirits are 
soothed and relieved by domestic endear- 
ments, and his self-respect kept alive by 
finding that, though all abroad is darkness 
and humiliation, yet there is still a little 
world of love at home, of which he is the 
monarch. 

Whereas, a single man is apt to run to 
waste and self-neglect ; to fancy himself 
lonely and abandoned ; and his heart to 
fall to ruin, like some deserted mansion, 
for want of an inhabitant. These obser- 
vations call to mind a little domestic story 
of which I was once a witness. 

My intimate friend, Leslie, had mar- 
ried a beautiful and accomplished girl, 
who had been brought up in the midst of 
fashionable life. She had, it is true, no 
fortune, but that of my friend was ample ; 
and he delighted in the anticipation of in- 
dulging her in every elegant pursuit and 
administering to those delicate tastes and 
fancies that spread a kind of witchery 
about the sex. " Her life," said he, "shall 
be like a fairy-tale." Never did a couple 
set forward on the flowery path of early 
and well-suited marriage with a fairer 
prospect of felicity. 

It was the misfortune of my friend, 
however, to have embarked his property 
in large speculations ; and he liad not 
been married many months, when by a 
succession of sudden disasters, it was swept 
away from him, and he found Jiimself 
reduced almost to penury. For a time he 
ke[)t his situation to himself, and went 
about with a Iiaggard countenance and a 
breaking heart. His life was but a pro- 



87 



THE WIFE, 



fcracted agony ; and what rendered it more 
insupportable was the necessity of keep- 
ing up a smile in the presence of his wife ; 
for he could not bring himself to over- 
whelm her with the news. 

She saw, however, with the quick eyes 
of affection, that all was not well with 
him. She marked his altered looks and 
stifled sighs, and was not to be deceived 
by his sickly and vapid attempts at cheer- 
fulness. She tasked all her sprightly 
powers and tender blandishments to win 
him back to happiness ; but she only 
drove the arrow deeper into his soul. 

The more he saw cause to love her, the 
more torturing was the thought that he 
was soon to make her wretched. "A lit- 
tle while,'' thought he, "and the smile 
will vanish from that cheek ; the song 
will die away from those lips; the luster 
of those eyes will be quenched with sor- 
row ; and the happy heart which now beats 
lightly in that bosom will be weighed 
down like mine by the cares and miseries 
of the world.'' 

At length he came to me one day and 
related his whole situation in a tone of the 
deepest despair. When I heard him 
through, I inquired, "Does your wife 
know all this ?" At the question, he burst 
into an agony of tears. " If you have 
any pity on me," cried he, " don't men- 
tion my wife : it is the thought of her that 
drives me almost to madness 1" 

*' And why not ?" said I. " She must 
know it sooner or later : you cannot keep 
it long from her, and the intelligence may 
break upon her in a more startling man- 
ner than if imparted by yourself; for the 
accents of those we love soften the harsh- 
est tidings. Besides, you are depriving 
yourself of the comforts of her sympathy ; 
and not merely that, but also endangering 
the only bond that can keep hearts togeth- 
er, — an unreserved community of thought 

88 



and feeling. She will soon perceive that 
something is preying upon your mind: 
and true love will not brook reserve ; it 
feels undervalued and outraged when 
even the sorrows of those it loves are con- 
cealed from it." 

" Oh, but, my friend, to think what a 
blow I am to give to all her future pros- 
pects ! — how I am to strike her very soul 
to the earth by telling her that her hus- 
band is a beggar ! that she is to forego all 
the elegancies of life, all the pleasures of 
society, to shrink with me into indigence 
and obscurity ! To tell her that I have 
dragged her down from the sphere in 
which she might have continued to move 
in constant brightness, the light of every 
eye, the admiration of every heart ! How 
can she bear poverty ? she has been 
brought up in all the refinement of op- 
ulence. How can she bear neglect ? she 
has been the idol of society. Oh ! it will 
break her heart ! it will break her heart !" 

I saw his grief was eloquent, and I let 
it have its flow ; for sorrow relieves itself 
by words. When his paroxysm had sub- 
sided, and he had relapsed into moody 
silence, I resumed the subject gently, and 
urged him to break his situation at once 
to his wife. He shook his head mourn- 
fully but positively. 

" But how are you to keep it from her ? 
It is necessary she should know it, that 
you may take the steps proper to the 
alteration of your circumstances. You 
must change your style of living : nay," 
— observing a pang to pass across his 
countenance, — " don't let that afflict you. 
I am sure you have never placed your 
happiness in outward show ; you have yet 
friends — warm friends — who will not 
think the worse of you for being less 
splendidly lodged ; and surely it does not 
require a palace to be happy with Mary." 

" I could be happy with her," cried h^ 



THE WIFE. 



convulsively, " In a hovel ! I could go 
down with her into poverty and the dust !" 
" And, believe me, my friend," said I, 
stepping up and grasping him warmly by 
the hand, — '^ believe me, she can be the 
same with you. Aye, more ! — it will be 
a source of j^ide and triumph to her ; it 
will call fortli all the latent energies and 
fervent sympathies of her nature ; for she 
will rejoice to prove that she loves you 
for yourself. 

" There is in every true woman's heart 
a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dor- 
mant in the broad daylight of prosperity, 
but which kindles up and beams and 
blazes in the dark hour of adversity. Ko 
man knows what the wife of his bosom is, 
— no man knows what a ministering angel 
she is, — until he has gone with her through 
the fiery trials of this world/' 

There was something in the earnestness 
of my manner and the figurative style of 
my language, that caught the excited im- 
agination of Leslie. I knew the auditor 
I had to deal with ; and, following up 
the impression I had made, I finished by 
persuading him to go home and unburden 
his sad heart to his wife. 

I must confess, notwithstanding all I 
had said, I felt some little solicitude for 
the result. Who can calculate on the for- 
titude of one whose whole life has been a 
round of pleasures ? Her gay spirits 
might revolt at the dark, downward path 
of low humility suddenly pointed out 
before her, and might cling to the sunny 
regions in which they had hitherto rev- 
eled. Besides, ruin in fashionable life is 
accompanied by so many galling mortifi- 
cations to which in other ranks it is a 
stranger. In short, I could not meet 
Leslie the next morning without trepida- 
tion. He had made the disclosure. 

*' And how did she bear it?'' "Like 
an angel. It seemed rather to be a relief 



to her mind ; for she threw her arms 
round my neck, and asked if this was 
all that had lately made me unhappy. 
But, poor girl !" added he, "she cannot 
realize the^'hange we must undergo. She 
has no idea of poverty but in the abstract; 
she has only read of it in poetry, where 
it is allied to love. She feels as yet no 
privation ; she suffers no loss of accus- 
tomed conveniences nor elegancies. When 
we come practically to experience its 
sordid cares, its paltry wants, its petty 
humiliations, then will be the real trial." 

" But," said I, " now that you have got 
over the severest task, — that of breaking 
it to her, — the sooner you let the world 
into the secret the better. The disclosure 
may be mortifying ; but then it is a single 
misery, and soon over : whereas you other- 
wise suifer it, in anticipation, every hour 
in the day. It is not poverty so much as 
pretense that harasses a ruined man, — the 
struggle between a proud mind and an 
empty purse, the keeping up a hollow 
show that must soon come to an end. 
Have the courage to appear poor, and you 
disarm poverty of its sharpest sting." 

On this point I found Leslie perfectly 
prepared. He had no false pride himself; 
and, as to his wife, she was only anxious 
to conform to their altered fortunes. Some 
days afterward he called upon me in the 
evening. He had disposed of his dwcl- 
linghouse, and taken a small cottage in 
the country, a few miles from town. He 
had been busied all day in sending out 
furniture. The new establishment re- 
quired few articles, and those of the 
simplest kind. 

All the splendid furniture of his late 
residence had been sold, excepting liis 
wife's harp. That, he said, was too close- 
ly associated with the idea of herself; it 
belonged to the little story of their loves : 
for some of the sweetest moments of their 



89 



THE WIFE, 



courtship were those when he had leaned 
over that instrument and listened to the 
melting tones of her voice. I could not 
but smile at this instance of romantic 
gallantry in a doting husband, t 

He w;is now going out to the cottage, 
'inhere his wife h.id been all day superin- 
tending its arrangement. My feelings 
had become strongly interested in the 
progi-ess of this family story ; and, as it 
was a fine evening, I offered to accompany 
him. He Avas wearied with the fatigues 
of the day, and, as he walked out, fell 
into a fit of gloomy musing. 

''Poor Mary V^ at length broke, with a 
heavy sigh, from his lips. ^' And what of 
her?" asked I : ''has anything happened 
to her?'' "What!'' said he, darting an 
impatient glance; " is it nothing to be re- 
duced to this paltry situation? — to be 
caged in a miserable cottage? — to be 
obliged to toil almost in the menial con- 
cerns of her wretched habitation ? " 

" Has she then repined at the change ? " 
*' Repined ! she has been nothing but 
sweetness and good humor. Indeed, she 
seems to be in better spirits than I have 
ever known her ; she has been to me all 
love and tenderness and comfort !" " Ad- 
mirable girl!" exclaimed I. "You call 
yourself poor, my friend : you were never 
so rich ; you never knew the boundless 
treasures of excellence you possess in that 
woman." 

" Oh, but, my friend, if this first meet- 
ing at the cottage were over, I think I 
could then be comfortable. But this is 
her first day of real experience: she has 
l)een introduced into an humble dwelling ; 
she has been employed all day in arrang- 
ing its miscral)le equipments; she has for 
the first time known the fiitigues of domes- 
tic employment ; she has for the first time 
looked round her on a home destitute of 
every thing elegant, almost of every thing 



convenient, and may now be sitting; down, 
exhausted and spiritless, brooding over a 
prospect of future poverty." 

There was a degree of probability in 
this picture that I could not gainsay ; so 
we walked on in silence. After turning 
from the main road up a narrow lane, so 
thickly shaded with forest-trees as to give 
it a complete air of seclusion, we came in 
sight of the cottage. It was humble 
enough in its appearance for the most 
pastoral poet; and yet it had a pleasing, 
rural look. A wild vine had overrun one 
end with a profusion of foliage; a few 
trees threw their branches gracefully over 
it; and I observed several pots of flowers 
tastefully disposed about the door and on 
the grassplot in front. 

A small wicket-gate opened upon a foot- 
path that wound through some shrubbery 
to the door. Just as we approached, we 
heard the sound of music. Leslie grasped 
my arm : we paused and listened. It was 
Mary's voice, singing, in a style of the 
most touching simplicity, a little air of 
which her husband was peculiarly fond. 

I felt Leslie's hand tremble on my arm. 
He stepped forward to hear more distinct- 
ly. His step made a noise on the gravel 
walk. A bright, beautiful face glanced 
out at the window and vanished ; a light 
footstep was heard, and ^lary came trip- 
ping forth to meet us. She Avas in a pretty, 
rural dress of white ; a few wild flowers 
were twisted in her fine hair; a fresh 
bloom was on her cheek ; her whole coun- 
tenance beamed Avith smiles. I had ne\'er 
seen her look so loA'ely. 

" My dear George," cried she, " I am so 
glad you are come ! I ha\^e been Avatch- 
ing and watching for you, and running 
down the lane and looking out for you. 
I've set out a table under a beautiful tree 
behind the cottage ; and I've been gather- 
ing some of the most delicious straAvber- 



90 



THE WIFE, 



lies, for I know you are fond of them ; 
and we have such excellent cream, and 
every thing is so sweet and still here. 
Oh!'' said she, putting her arm within 
his, and looking up brightly in his face, — 
" ch, we shall be so happy ! '' 

Poor Leslie was overcome. He caught 
her to his bosom ; lie folded his arms 
around her ; he kissed her again and again. 
He could not speak, but the tears gushed 
into his eyes; and he has often assured 
me, that though the world has since gone 
prosperously with him, and his life has 
indeed been a happy one, yet never has he 
experienced a moment of more exquisite 
felicity. Washington irving. 




CONJUGAL FELICITY. 

WEET thing'of beauty ! life would 
be 
A waste devoid of all things fair, 
Did not my bosom leap to thee, 
The soother of its grief and care : 
For woman's hand and woman's heart 

Can minister a healing balm ; 
Snatch from the soul the quiv'ring dart. 
And breathe o'er all a halcyon calm : 
A ministering angel she. 
To lighten mortal misery ! 

Oj when I first beheld thy face, 

And press 'd in mine thy gentle hand, 
Thy blooming cheek and modest grace 

Wav'd o'er my soul a magic wand; 
Thy kindly tone, thy playful smile. 

Bespeaking innocence and love ; 
The 'lustre of thine eyes the while 

That beam'd like angel-orbs above ; 
All join'd upon my heart, to pour 
A. joyance, never felt before ! 

I decm'd the bosom must be blest 
That lean'd confidingly on thine ; 

But honor then the wish suppress'd 
That e'er such blessing might be mine. 

I saw thee bloom, a floral gem, 
Such as the earth has rarely shown, 



How beauteous on its graceful stem I 

And yet between us was there thrown 
A passless bar I But that is past : 
Sweet rosebud, thou art mine at last I 

And 0, the ardors of my soul, 

At our first haj^py interview. 
Know no abatement, but control 

My bosom wholly as when new. 
I then but knew the garniture 

That lent its beauty to the rose ; 
But now I taste the essence pure 

That from its core divinely flows, 
Absorbing all those bitter tears 
That follow in the wake of years ! 

Perchance thine eyes are dimmer now, 

Thy step less light, thy cheek less fair: 
More grave thy voice and smile ; but tho'J 

Art still the soother of my care. 
Now from thy lips a current flows 

Of meek intelligence and truth. 
And kindness in thy bosom glows 

More sweet than all the charms of youth ; 
And, dove-like, thither, would I bound, 
When troubled waters rage around. 

Life is a changeful scene ; and we 

May scarce have felt its sorrows yet ; 
But still, whate'er the prospect be, 

The path howe'er with thorns beset, 
Still true to thee and Heav'n above, 

I shall not seek another shrine 
For solace, but hold fast the love 

That ever guides my soul to thine; 
Still shall I to thy breast repair. 
And find my consolation there I 



MARRYING FOR BEAUTY. 

"T^EMEMBER, that if thou marry 
c— \ for beauty, thou bindest thyself all 
thy life for that which perchance will 
neither last nor please thee one year ; and, 
when thou hast it, it will be to thee of no 
price at all, for the desire dieth when it is 
attained, and the affection perishcth when 
it is satisfied, sir walter raleigh. 



91 



A WIFE'S APPEAL TO HER HUSBAND. 



you took me, Henry, when a girl, into 
your home and heart, 
To Lear in all your after-fate a fond and 
faithful part ; 
And tell me, have I ever tried that duty to 

forego, 
3r pined there was not joy for me when you 
were sunk in woe ? 

N'o, I would rather share your grief than other 
people's glee ; 

For though you're nothing to the world, you're 
all the world to me. 

You make a palace of my shed, this rough- 
hewn bench a throne ; 

There's sunlight for me in your smile, and 
music in your tone. 

I look upon you when you sleep — my eyes 

with tears grow dim : 
I cry, ' Oh ! Parent of the poor look down 

from heaven on him ! 
Behold him toil from day to day exhausting 

strength and soul ; 
Look down in mercy on him, Lord, for Thou 

canst make him whole ! ' 

And when at last relieving sleep has on my 

eyelids smiled, 
How oft are they forbid to close in slumber 

by my child ! 
I take the little murmurer that spoils my span 

of rest. 
And feel it is a part of thee I hold upon my 

breast. 

There's only one return I crave — I may not 

need it long — 
And it may soothe thee when I'm where the 

wretched feel no wrong. 
I ask not for a kinder tone, for thou wert ever 

kind; 
I ask not for less frugal fare — my fare I do 

not mind. 



Subtract from meetings among men each eve 

an hour for me ; 
Make me companion for your soul as I may 

surely be ; 
If you will read, I'll sit and work ; then think, 

when you're away, 
Less tedious I shall find the time, dear Henry, 

of your stay. 

A meet companion soon I'll be for e'en your 

studious hours. 
And teacher of those little ones you call your 

cottage flowers : 
And if we be not rich and great, we may be 

wise and kind; 
And as my heart can warm your heart, so 

may my mind your mind. 



A CAUTION. 

EV'N in the happiest choice, where 
favoring Heaven 
Has equal love and easy fortune given, 
Think not, the husband gained, that 
all is done : 
The prize of happiness must still be won : 
And oft the careless find it to their cost, 
The lover in the husband may be lost; 
The graces might alone his heart allure ; 
They, and the virtues meeting must secure. 
Let ev'n your prudence wear the pleasing 

dress 
Of care for him, and anxious tenderness. 
From kind concern, about his weal or woe, 
Let each domestic duty seem to flow. 
Endearing still the common acts of life. 
The mistress still shall charm him in the wife ; 
And wrinkled face shall unobserved come on, 
Before his eye perceives one beauty gone. 

LORD GEORGE LYTTLETON. 



I ask not for more gay attire — if such as I JTTAIL, woman! Hail, thou faithful wife 

have got -^ f and mother. 

Suffice to make me fair to thee, for more I The latest, choicest part of Heaven's 

murmur not ; great plan I 

But I would ask some share of hours that you None fills thy peerless place at home; no 

in toil bestow ; other 

Of knowledge, that you prize so much, may I Helpmeet is found for laboring, suffering maru 

not something know ? rev.marktraft on. 

92 



TO MY WIFE, 



On the Ninth Anniversary of her Marriage. 




INE years ago you came to me. 

And nestled on my breast, 
A soft and winged mystery 

That settled here to rest ; 
And my heart rocked its Babe of bliss, 

And soothed its Child of air, 
With something 'twixt a song and kiss, 

To keep it nestling there. 



At first I thought the fairy form 

Too spirit-soft and good 
To fill my poor, low nest with warm 

And wifely womanhood. 
But such a cozy peep of home 

Did your dear eyes unfold ; 
And in their deep and dewy gloom, 

What tales of love were told ! 

We cannot boast to have bickered not. 

Since you and I were wed ; 
We have not lived the smoothest lot, 

Nor found the downiest bed ! 
Time hath not passed o'er head in stars. 

And under foot in flowers, 
With wings that slept on fragrant airs 

Thro' all the happy hours. 



In dreamy curves your beauty drooped, 

As tendrils lean to twine. 
And very graciously they stooped 

To bear their fruit, my Vine ! 
To bear such blessed fruit of love 

As tenderly increased 
Among the ripe vine-bunches of 

Your balmy-breathing breast. 

It is our way, more fate than fault. 

Love's cloudy fire to clear ; 
To find some virtue in the salt 

That sparkles in a tear .' 
Pray God it all come right at last. 

Pray God it so befall, 
That when our day of life is past. 

The end may crown it alL 

GERALD MASSE y. 



THE SHEPHERD'S WIFE'S SONG. 

AH ! what is love ? It is a pretty thing, 
As sweet unto a shepherd as a king, 
And sweeter too ; 
For kings have cares that wait upon a crown, 
And cares can make the sweetest face to frown : 

Ah then, ah then. 
If country loves such sweet desires gain, 
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 

His flocks are folded ; he comes home at night 
As merry as a king in his delight. 

And merrier too ; 
For kings bethink them what the state require. 
Where shepherds, careless, carol by the fire : 

Ah then, ah then, 



If country love such sweet desires gain, 
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 

He kisseth first, then sits as blithe to eat 
His cream and curd as doth the king his meat, 

And blither too ; 
For kings have often fears when they sup, 
Where shepherds dread no poison in their cup: 

Ah then, ah then, 
If country loves such sweet desires gain. 
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 

Upon his couch of straw he sleeps as sound 
As doth the king upon his beds of down. 

More sounder too ; 
For cares cause kings full oft their sleep to 
spill, 



93 



THE SHEPHERD'S WIFE'S SONG, 



Where weary shepherds lie and snort their fill : 

Ah then, ah then, 
If country loves such sweet desires gain, 
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 

Thus with his wife he spends the year as blithe 
As doth the king at every tide or syth, 

And blither too ; 
For kings have wars and broils to take in hand, 
When shepherds laugh, and love upon the 
land : 

Ah then, ah then, 
Tf country loves such sweet desires gain, 
Vhat lady would not love a shepherd swain? 

ROBERT GREENE. 



HAPPY they ! the happiest of their kind ! 
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one 
fate 
Their hearts, their fortunes, and their 
beings blend. 
'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws, 
Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind, 
That binds their peace, but harmony itself, 
Attuning all their passions into love; 
Where friendship full exerts her softest power, 
Perfect esteem, enlivened by desire 
Ineffable, and sympathy of soul ; 
Thought meeting thought, and will prevent- 
ing will. 
With boundless confidence : for nought but 
love 

Can answer love, and render bliss secure. 

■ What is the world to them, 

its pomp, its pleasures, and its follies all ! 
Who in each other clasp whatever fair 
High fancy forms, and lavish hearts can wish ; 
Something than beauty dearer, should they 

look 
Or on the mind, or mind-illumin'd face ; 
Truth, goodness, honor, harmony, and love. 
The richest bounty of indulgent Heaven ? 

THOMSON. 



CONTINUE YOUR COURTSHIP. 

MANY a marriage has commenced, 
like the morning, red, and per- 
ished like a mushroom. Where- 
fore ? Because the married pair neglected 
to be as as^reeable to each other after their 
union as they were before it. Seek always 
to please each other, my children, but in 



doing so, keep heaven in mind. Lavish 
not your love to-day, remembering that 
marriage has a morrow and again a mor- 
row. Bethink ye my daughters, what the 
word house-icrfe expresses. The married 
woman is her husband's domestic trust. 
On her, he ought to be able to place his 
reliance in house and family ; to her, he 
should confide the key of his heart and 
the lock of his store-room. His honor 
and his home are under her protection, his 
welfare in her hands. Ponder this ! And 
you, my sons, be true men of honor, and 
good fathers of your families. Act in 
such wise, that your wives respect and love 
you. And what more shall I say to you, 
my children ? Peruse diligently the word 
of God : that will guide you out of storm 
and dead calm, and bring you safe into 
port. And as for the rest, — do your best ! 

FREDERIKA BREMER. 



MUTUAL FORGIVENESS. 

T SUPPOSE the brides are few who 
^ have not wept once over the hasty 
words of a husband, not six months mar- 
ried ; and I suppose there are few hus- 
bands who, in the early part of their 
married life, have not felt that perhaps 
their choice was not a wise one. Breaches 
of harmony will occur between imperfect 
men and women ; but all evil results may 
be avoided by a resolution, well kept on 
both sides, to ask forgiveness for the hasty 
word, the peevish complaint, the unshared 
pleasure; and if there is a frank and 
worthy nature, a quarrel is impossible. 

DR. J. G. HOLLAND. 



THOUGH fools spurn Hymen's gentle 
powers, 
We, who improve his golden hours, 
By sweet experience know, 
That marriage, rightly understood, 
Gives to the tender and the good 

A paradise below. cotton. 



94 



THE TRYING HOUR. 




^riEX tlie honeymoon passes be- 
iC^ bind (lull mountains, or dips 
silently into the stormy sea of 
life, the trying hour of married 
life has come. Between the parties there 
are no more illusions. The feverish de- 
sire for possession has gone, and all ex- 
citement receded. Then begins, or should, 
the business of adaptation. If they find 
that they do not love one another as they 
thought they did, they should double their 
assiduous attentions to one another, and 
be jealous of everything which tends in 
the slightest way to separate them. Life 
is too precious to be thrown away in secret 
regrets or open differences. And let me 
say to every one to whom the romance of 
life has fled, and who are discontented 
in the slio^htest deo^ree with their condi- 
tions and relations, begin this reconcilia- 
tion at once. Renew the attentions of 
earlier days. Draw your hearts closer 
• too-ether. Talk the thin o; all over. Ac- 
knowledge your faults to one another, 
and determine that henceforth you will 
be all in all to each other ; and my word 
for it, you shall find in your relation the 
sweetest joy earth has for you. There is 
no other way for you to do. If you are 
hippy, at home, you must be happy 
abroad ; the man or woman who has set- 
tled down upon the conviction that he or 
she is attached for life to an unconirenial 



those who devoutly try to do the work of 
life and enjoy its goods together. For 
them, there is in store a respect, and affec- 
tion ; a peace and power all unknown in 
the hey-day of young romance. Experi- 
ence Intertwines their remembrances and 
hopes in stronger cords, and as they 
stand at the loom of time, one with the 
strong warp, the other with the finer 
woof, the hand of Providence weaves for 
them a tissue of unfading beauty and im- 
perishable worth. 



ADVICE OF DAYID COPPERFIELD'S iUHT. 

II rpHESE are early days Trot,'' she pur- 
J sued, " and Roine was not built in 
a day, nor in a year. You have 
chosen freely for yourself; " a cloud passed 
over her face for a moment, I thought; 
'^ and you have chosen a very pretty and 
a very affectionate creature. It will be 
your duty, and it will be your pleasure 
too — of course, I know that ; I am not 
delivering a lecture — to estimate her (as 
you chose her) by the qualities she has, 
and not by the qualities she may not have. 
The latter you must develop in her, if 
you can. And if you cannot, child," here 
my aunt rubbed her nose, "you must just 
accustom yourself to do without 'em. 
But remember my dear, your future is be- 



tween you two. No one can assist you ; 
yoke-fellow, and that there is no way of ^^^ ^re to work it out for yourselves, 
escape, has lost life ; there is no effort too xhis is marriage, Trot ; and Heaven bless 



costly to make which can restore to its set- 
ting upon the bosom, the missing pearl. 

It is a great thing for two frail natures 
to live as one for life long. Two harps 
are not ea?iily kept always in tune, and 
what shall we expect of two harps each of 
a tliousand strings? AVhat human will or 
wisdom cannot do, God can do, and his 
Providence is uniting ever more intimately, 



95 



you both in it, for a pair of babes in the 
woods as you are ! " 

CHARLES D I CKENS, 



A GENTLE wife 

Is still the sterling comfort of man's life ; 
To fools a torment, but a lasting l)oon 
To those who wisely keep the honeymoon. 

John Tobin. 



HOW THE GENTLEMEN DO BEFORE MARRIAGE. 





^H I then they come flatteringj 
Soft nonsense chattering, 
Praising your pickling, 
Playing at tickling, 
Love verses writing, 
Acrostics inditing, 
If your finger aches, fretting; 
Fondling and petting, 
" My loving" — " my doving,'* 
" Petseying," — " wetseying," 
Kow sighing, now dying, 
Now dear diamonds buying, 
Or yards of chantilly, like a great big silly, 
Cashmere shawls — brandy balls, 
Oranges, apples, — gloves Gros de Naples, 
Sweet pretty " skuggies " — ugly pet puggies ; 
Now with an ear-ring themselves endearing, 
Or squandering guineas upon Sevignes, 
Now fingers squeezing or playfully teazing. 
Bringing you bull's eyes, casting you sheep's eyee. 
Looking in faces while working braces. 
Never once heeding what they are reading. 
But soiling one's hose by pressing one's toes : 
Or else so zealous, and nice and jealous of all the fellows, 
Darting fierce glances if ever one dances with a son of France's ; 
Or finding great faults, or threatening assaults whenever you " valtz ; ^ 
Or fuming and fussing enough for a dozen if you romp with your cousin ; 
Continually stopping, when out a-shopping, and bank notes dropping. 
Not seeking to win money, calling it " tin " money, and promising pin money ; 
Like pic-nics at Twickenham, ofi" lovely cold chicken, ham, and champagne to 

quicken 'em ; 
Detesting one's walking without John too goes stalking, to prevent the men talking ; 
Think you still in your teens, won't let you eat " greens," and hate crinohnes ; 
Or heaping caresses, if you curl your black tresses, or wear low-neck'd dresses ; 
Or when up the river, almost sure to diskiver that beats all to shiver, the sweet 

Guadalquiver ; 
Or seeing death-fetches if the tooth-ache one catches, making picturesque sketches of 

the houses of wretches ; 
Or with loud double knocks brings from Eber's a box to see "Box and Cox," or pilfer 

one's locks to mark their new stocks ; 
Or whilst you are singing a love song so stinging, they vow they'll be swinging, or in 
Serpentine springing, unless to them clinging, you'll go wedding-ringing, and 
for life mend their linen. 
Now the gentlemer^ sure I've no wish to disparage. 
But this is the way they go on before marriage. 

96 ' - • ' i 



m HOW THE GENTLEMEN DO AFTER MARRIAGE, fe 



OH ! then nothing pleases 'em, but everything teases 'em, 
Then they're grumbhng and snarling— you're a " fool," not a "darling;* 
Though they're as rich as the Ingies^ they're the stingiest of stingies ; 
And what is so funny, they've never got money ; 
Only ask 'em for any and they haven't a penny ; 
But what passes all bounds, on themselves they'll spend pounds — 
Give guineas for lunch off real turtle and punch ; 

Each week a noise brings about, when they pitch all the things about ; 
Now bowing in mockery, now smashing the crockery ; 
Scolding and swearing, their bald heads tearing ; 
Storming and raging past all assuaging. 
Heaven preserve us I it makes one so nervous, 
To hear the door slam to, to be called simple ma'am, too ; 
(I wonder if Adam called Mrs. Eve, Madam ;) 
As a matter of course they'll have a divorce ; 
Or "my Lord Duke " intends to send you home to your friends, 
And allow ten pounds a quarter for yourself and your daughter; 
Though you strive all your might you can do nothing right ; 
While the maids — the old song — can do nothing wrong. 
" Every shirt wants a button ! " Every day they've cold mutton ; 
They're always a flurrying one; or else they're a hurrying one, or else they're a wor- 
rying one ; 
Threatening to smother your dear sainted mother, or kick your big brother ; 
After all your fine doings, your strugglings and stewings — why " the house is in ruins ! " 
Then the wine goes like winking, and they cannot help thinking you've taken to 

drinking ; 
They're perpetually rows keeping, 'cause out of the housekeeping they're in bonnets 

their spouse keeping ; 
So when they've been meated, if with pies they're not treated, they vow that they're 

cheated ! 
Then against Ascot Races, and all such sweet places, they set their old faces ; 
And they'll never leave town, nor to Broadstairs go down, though with bile you're 

quite brown ; 
For their wife they unwilling are, after cooing and billing her, to stand a caji from 

the milliner — e'en a paltry twelve shillinger ; 
And it gives them the vapors to witness the capers of those bowers and scrn2:)crs, the 

young linen drapers ; 
Then to add to your woes, they say nobody knows how the money all goes, but they 

pay through the nose for the dear children's clothes ; 
Though you strive and endeavor, they're so mightily clever, that j)lease tlieiu you'll 

never, till you leave them for ever — yes! the hundredth time sever — ^'for ever — 

AND EVER ! ! " 
Now the gentlemen sure I've no wish to disparage, 
But this is the way they go on after marriage. 

!P7 



PENELOPE THE FAITHFUL WIFE. 



PENELOPE was born about 1214 
B. C, and is one of the most 
interesting of the semi-historical 
heroines of antiquity. She was 
the daughter of Icarius and Polycaste and 
a cousin of Helen, daughter of Tyndarus, 
King of Sparta. She married Ulysses, 
son of Laertes, King of Ithaca. The 
aged king resigned his crown to his son 
and retired to a life of rural solitude. 

Ulysses and Penelope lived for a time 
happily in their island kingdom, reigning 
in peace over their subjects, and rearing 
their son, Telemachus. 

In the mean time Helen had married 
Menelaus, who, upon the death of Tyn- 
darus, succeeded to the throne of Sparta. 
Paris, the son of Priam, King of Troy, 
now paid his memorable visit to Sparta, 
requiting the hospitality of his host by 
abducting his wife. Ulysses was sum- 
moned by Menelaus and his brother 
Agamemnon, to join the forces collecting 
for the chastisement of Paris and the 
destruction of Troy. Though loath to 
leave his beloved Penelope, he accom- 
panied the Greeks to Ilium, and remained 
during the siege of Troy, which lasted 
for ten years. Upon the fall of the city, 
he was involved in disasters, and for ten 
years more wandered from country to 
country, exposed to constant peril and 
unable to regain his home. It is the pru- 
dence, dignity and fidelity of Penelope, 
during these twenty years of separation, 
that have made her the heroine of poets, 
the envy of husbands, the dream and the 
toast of bachelors. 

During the latter years of the absence 
of Ulysses, his palace at Ithaca was 
thronged with princes and peers, importu- 
nate and quarrelsome suitors for the hand 
of the queen, who, they maintained, had 
long since been made a widow by battle 



or shipwreck. Her friends and family 
urged her to abandon the idea of her hus- 
band's return, and to choose from among 
the rival aspirants a father for Telemachus 
and a sovereign for Ithaca. She exerted 
all her ingenuity, and put in practice every 
artifice which she could invent, to defer 
the period of her final decision. In the 
seventeenth year of her solitude, she im- 
agined the device which is so indissolubly 
connected with her name, engaging to 
make a choice when she shou'd have com- 
pleted a web which she was then weaving 
as a funeral ornament for Laertes, Ulysses' 
father, now rapidly sinking to the grave. 
The suitors gladly accepted a proposal 
which seemed to promise a speedy termi- 
nation. But Penelope, assiduously unrav- 
eling at night what she had woven during 
the day, protracted for three years more, 
the fatal moment. At the beginning of 
the fourth, a female attendant disclosed 
the pious treachery. These incidents are 
related by Homer in a speech placed in 
the mouth of Antinous, the most turbu- 
lent of the suitors. Telemachus had re- 
proached them with riotous conduct, alleg- 
ing that their prodigality had well-nigh 
drained the royal coffers. Antinous thus 
replied : 

" O insolence of youth ! whose tongue affords 
Such railing eloquence and war of words ; 
Studious thy country's worthies to defame, 
Thy erring voice proclaims thy mother'? 

shame. 
Elusive of the bridal day, she gives 
Fond hope to all, and all with hopes deceives. 
Did not the sun, through heaven's widet.zure 

roll'd. 
For three long years the royal fraud hehold'i 
Wliile she laborious in delusion si)read 
The spacious loom and mixed the variouji 

thread. 
"SAHien as to life, the wondrous figures rise, 
Thus spoke the inventive queen with artful 

sighs : — 



98 



PENELOPE THE FAITHFUL WIFE. 



'Though cold in death Ulysses breathes no 

more, 
* Cease yet awhile to urge the bridal hour ; 
'Cease till to great Laertes I bequeath 
'A task of grief, his ornaments of death. 
'Lest when the Fates his royal ashes claim, 
'The Grecian matrons taint my spotless fame ; 
'When he whoin, living, mighty realms 

obeyed, 
'Shall want in deatii, a shroud to grace his 

shade.' 
Thus she : at once the generous train complies, 
Nor fraud mistrusts in virtue's foir disguise. 
The work she plied, bat studious of delay, 
By night revers'd the labors of the day. 
While thrice the sun his annual journey made, 
The conscious lamp the midnight fraud sur- 

vey'd. 
Unheard, unseen, three years her arts prevail. 
The fourth, her maid unfolds th' ama/ing tale 
We saw, as unperceiv'd we took our stand, 
The backward labors of her faithless hand. 
Then urg'd, she perfects her illustrious toik, 
A wondrous monument of female wiles ! " 

In Ovid's ^^ Epistles of the Heroines/'' 
is a letter from Penelope to Ulysses, in 
which, ignorant of the causes of his delay, 
she chides him for his prolonged absence, 
and with persuasive eloquence entreats 
him to return : 

'^Ulysses, thy Penelope sends this to 
thee, thus delaying. But write me noth- 
ing in answer: do thou come thyself. 
Troy, so hateful to the Grecian fair, doubt- 
less lies prostrate ; hardly was Priam, and 
the whole of Troy, of such great import- 
ance. Oh ! how I wish that at the time 
when he was making for Lacedaemon with 
his fleet, the adulterer had been over- 
whelmed in the raging waves! Then I 
had not lain cold in a deserted bed, nor, 
forlorn, should I have complained that 
the days pass slowly on: the hanging 
web would not have wearied my widowed 
hands, as I seek to beguile the lingering 
night. 

When have I not been dreading dangers 
more grievous than the reality? Love is 
a thing replete with anxious fears. Against 



thee did I fancy that the furious Trojans 
were rushing on : at the name of Hect6r, 
I was always pale. But the righteous god 
had a regard for my chaste passion ; Troy 
has been reduced to ashes and my husband 
survives. The Argive chieftains have re- 
turned ; the altars are smok ing ; the spoils 
of the barbarians are offered to the gods 
of our country. The damsels newly mar- 
ried are presenting the gifts of gratitude 
for the safe return of their husbands ; the 
latter are celebrating the destinies of Troy 
overcome by their own. 

But what avails me Ilion hurled down 
by thy arms, and that level ground which 
once was walls, if I remain just as I re- 
mained while Troy was flourishing, and if 
thou, my husband, art afar from me, to be 
lamented by me eternally ? Now 'tis a 
field of corn where once Troy stood ; and 
the ground destined to be plied with the 
sickle, is rich, fattened by Phrygian blood. 
A^ictorious, thou art absent, and it is not 
granted me to know what is the cause of 
thy delaying, or in what corner of the 
world, in thy cruelty, thou art concealed. 
Whoever steers his stranger bark to these 
shores, departs after having been asked by 
me many a question about thee; and to 
him is intrusted the paper inscribed with 
my fingers for him to deliver to thee, if 
he should only see thee anywhere. 

More to my advantage were the Avails 
of Troy standing even now. I should 
then know where thou art fighting, and 
warfare alone should I dread, and with 
those of many others would my complaints 
be joined. What to fear I know not ; still, 
bewildered, I dread everything; and a 
wide field lies open for my apprehensions. 
Whatever dangers the sea presents, what- 
ever the Innd, these I sus})ect to be the 
causes of a delay so prolonged. 

While in my folly I am imagining these 
things, such is the inconstancy of you men, 



99 



PENELOPE THE FAITHFUL WIFE. 



that thou mayest be captivated by some 
foreign beauty. Perhaps, too, thou mayest 
be telliuor how homelv thv wife is who 
minds only the spindle and the distaff. 
May I prove mistaken, and may this 
charge vanish into unsubstantial air ; and 
mayest thou not, if free to return, still 
desire to be absent ! My father, Icarius, 
urges me to leave a widowed bed, and is 
always chiding thy protracted delay. Let 
him chide on ; thine I am, thy Penelope 
must I be called ; the wife of Ulysses will 
I ever be. Suitors from Dulychium, and 
Samos, and the lofty Zacynthus, a wanton 
crew, are besetting me ; and in thy palace 
do they rule, with no one to hinder them ; 
thy wealth are they dissipating. I have 
no strength to drive the enemy from thy 
abode ; come speedily then, the refuge and 
sanctuary of thy family. 

Thou hast, and long mayest thou have, 
a son, who in his tender years ought to 



have been trained to the virtues of his 
father. Think of Laertes; that thou 
mayest close his eyes he still drags on the 
closing hours of his existence. I, no 
doubt, who was but a girl when thou 
didst depart, shall seem to have become 
an old woman, though thou shouldst re- 
turn at once.^' 

At the end of the twentieth vear 
Llysses returned and Penelope fell upon 
his neck and wept. This Homer tells us 
was in the evening ; and he adds that the 
night which followed, was an unusuallv 
protracted one, inasmuch 

"As Pallas backward held the rising day, 
The wheels of night retarding." 

Penelope was more fortunate in death 
than in life: she found a historian in 
Homer; an edition in Ovid; and in 
Fenelon a biographer for her son Tele- 
machus. 



THE X R L; E \\^ I K E 



H 



^^^^FTEXTIMES I have seen a tall ship glide by against the tide as if drawn by 
:ome invisible bowline, with a hundred strong arms pulling it. Her sails 
unfilled, her streamers were drooping, she had neither side wheel nor stern 



^♦.^ 



wheel ; still she moved on stately, in serene triumph, as with her own life. But I 
knew that on the other side of the ship, hidden beneath the great bulk that swam so 
majestically, there was a little toilsome steam tug, with a heart of fire and arms of 
iron, that was tugging it bravely on, and I knew if the little steam tug untwined her 
arm and left the ship it would wallow and roll about and drift hither and thither, and 
go off with the refluent tide, no man knows whither. And so I have known more 
than one genius, high -decked, full freighted, idle-sailed, gay-pennoned, but that for 
the bare toiling arms, and brave warm-beating heart of the faithful little wife that 
nestles close to him, so that no wind or wave could part them, would have gone dowD 
with the stream and have been heard of no more. oliver wen dell holmes. 

100 



k 

1^^ 



* 




A HAPPY THIEF. 



DAYID COPPERFIELD AHD HIS CHILD-Y/IFE. 




LL this time I had gone on loving Dora harder than ever. 

If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was 

not merely over head and ears in love with her, I was 

saturated through and through. I took night walks to 

Norwood where she lived, aud perambulated 

round and round the house and garden for 

hours together, looking through crevices in the 

palings, using violent exertions to get my chin 

above the rusty nails on the top, blowing kisses 

at the lights in the windows, and romantically 

calling on the night to shield my Dora, — I 

don't exactly know from what, — I supposefrom 

fire, perhaps from mice, to which she had a 

great objection. 

Dora had a discreet friend, comparatively 
stricken in years almost of the ripe age of 
twenty, I should say, whose name was Miss 
Dora called her Julia. She was 



Mills. 

the bosom friend of Dora. Happy Miss 

Mills ! 

One day Miss Mills said : " Dora is 
coming to stay with me. She is coming 
the day after to-morrow. If you would 
like to call, I am sure papa would be 
happy to see you." 

I passed three days in a luxury of 
wretchedness. At last, arrayed for the 
purpose, at a vast expense, I went to Miss 
Mills's fraught with a declaration. Mr. 
Mills was not at home. I didn't expect 
he would be. Nobody wanted him. Miss 
Mills was at home. Miss Mills w^ould do. 

I was shown into a room, up-stairs, 
where Miss Mills and Dora were. Dora's 
little dog Jip was there. Miss Mills was 
copying music, and Dora was painting 
flowers. What were my feelings when I 
recognized flowers I had given her ! 

Miss Mills was very glad to see me, 
and very sorry her papa was not at home, 
though I thought we all bore that with 
fortitude. Miss Mills was conversational 
for a few minutes, and then laying down 
her pen, got up and left the room. 



I began to ^hink I would put it off till 
to-morrow. 

'' I hope your poor horse was not tired 
when he got home at night from that pic- 
nic," said Dora, lifting up her beautiful 
eyes. "It was a long way for him." 

I began to think I would do it to-day. 

" It was a long way for him, for he had 
nothing to uphold him on the journey." 

*' Wasn't he fed, poor thing?" asked 
Dora. 

I began to think I would put it off till 
to-morrow. 

"Ye — yes, he was well taken care of. 
I mean he had not the unutterable happi- 
ness that I had in being so near to you." 

I saw now that I was in for it, and it 
must be done on the spot. 

" I don't know why you should care for 
being near me," said Dora, "or why 
you should call it a happiness. But, of 
course, you don't mean what you say. Jip, 
you naughty boy, come here !" 

I don't know how I did it, but I did it 
in a moment. 



7c 



101 



DAVID COPPERFTELD AND HIS CEILD-WTFh. 



I intercepted Jip. I had Dora in my 
arms. I was full of eloquence. I never 
stopped for a word. I told her how I 
loved her. I told her I should die with- 
out her. I told her that I idolized and 
worshipped her. Jip barked madly all 
the time. My eloquence increased, and I 
said, if she would like me to die for her, 
she had but to say the word, and I was 
ready. I had loved her to distraction every 
minute, day and night, since I first set 
eyes upon her. I loved her at that minute 
to distraction. I should always love her, 
every minute, to distraction. Lovers had 
loved before, and lovers would love again ; 
but no lover had ever loved, might, could, 
would, or should ever love, as I loved 
Dora. The more I raved, the more Jip 
barked. Each of us in his own way got 
more mad every moment. 

Well, Well ! Dora and I were sitting 
on the sofa, by and by, quiet enough, and 
Jip was lying in her lap winking peace- 
fully at me. It was off my mind. I w^as 
in a state of perfect rapture. Dora and I 
were engaged. 

Being poor, I felt it necessary the next 
time I went to my darling to expatiate on 
that unfortunate drawback. I soon car- 
ried desolation into the bosom of our joys 
— not that I meant to do it, but that I 
was so full of the subject — by asking Dora, 
without the smallest preparation, if she 
could love a beggar. 

" How can you ask me anything so fool- 
ish ? Love a beggar !'' 

" Dora, my own dearest, I am a beggar !'' 

" How can you be such a silly thing,^' 
replied Dora, slapping my hand, " as to 
sit there, telling such stories ? I'll make 
Jip bite you, if you are so ridiculous." 

But I looked so serious that Dora began 
to cry. She did nothing but exclaim. Oh, 
dear! Oh, dear! And Oh, she was so 
frightened ! And where was Julia Mills? 



And Oix, take her to Julia Mills, and go 
away, please! until I was almost beside 
myself. 

I thought I had killed her. I sprinkled 
water on her face ; I went down on my 
knees ; I plucked at my hair ; I implored 
her forgiveness ; I besought her to look 
up : I ravaged Miss Mills's work-box for 
a smelling-bottle, and, in my agony of 
mind, applied an ivory needle-case, in- 
stead, and dropped all the needles over 
Dora. 

At last I got Dora to look at me, with 
a horrified expression which I gradually 
soothed until it was only loving, and her 
soft, pretty cheek was lying against mine. 

" Is your heart mine still, dear Dora?" 

" Oh yes ! Oh yes ! it's all yours. Oh, 
don't be dreadful." 

"■ My dearest love, the crust well 
earned — " 

'' Oh, yes ; but I don't want to hear any 
more about crusts. And after we are mar- 
ried, Jip must have a mutton chop every 
day at twelve, or he'll die." 

I was charmed with her childish, win- 
ning way, and I fondly explained to her 
that Jip should have his mutton chop with 
his accustomed regularity. 

When we had been engaged some half- 
year or so, Dora delighted me by asking 
me to give her that cookery book I had 
once spoken of, and to show her how to 
keep accounts, as I had once promised I 
would. I brought the volume with me 
on my next visit (I got it prettily bound 
first, to make it look less dry and more 
inviting), and showed her an old house- 
keeping book of my aunt's, and gave her 
a set of tablets, and a pretty little pencil- 
case, and a box of leads, to practice house- 
keeping with. 

But the cookery-book made Dora's head 
ache, and the figures made her cry. They 
wouldn't add up she said so she rubbed 



102 



DAVID COPPERFIELD AND HIS CHILD-WIFE, 



them out, and drew little nosegays, and 
likenesses of me and Jip, all over the 
tablets. 

Time went on, and at last, here in this 
hand of mine, I held the wedding license. 
There were the two names in the sweet 
old visionary connection, — David Copper- 
field and Dora Spenlow ; and there in the 
corner there was that parental institution, 
the Stamp office, looking down upon our 
union ; and there, in the printed form of 
words, was the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
invoking a blessing on us, and doing it as 
cheap as could possibly be expected. 

I doubt whether two young birds could 
have known less about keeping house than 
I and my pretty Dora did. We had a ser- 
vant, of course. &he kept house for us. 

We had an awful time of it with Mary 
Anne. 

Her name was Paragon. Her nature 
was represented to us, when we engaged 
her, as being feebly expressed in her name. 
She had a written character as large as a 
proclamation, and according to this docu- 
ment could do everything of a domestic 
nature that ever I heard of, and a great 
many things that I never did hear of. 
She was a woman in the prime of life ; of 
a severe countenance, and subject (partic- 
ularly in the arms) to a sort of perpetual 
measles. She had a cousin in the Life 
Guards, with such long legs that he looked 
like the afternoon shadow of somebody 
else. She was warranted sober and honest ; 
and I am therefore willing to believe that 
she was in a fit when we found her under 
the boiler, and that the deficient teaspoons 
were attributable to the dustman. She 
was the cause of our first little quarrel. 

" My dearest life," I said one day to 
Dora, ** do you think that Mary Anne has 
any idea of time?" 

<^Why, Doadyr 



" My love, because its five, and we 
were to have dined at four." 

My little wife came and sat upon my 
knee, to coax me to be quiet, and drew 
a line with her pencil down the middle of 
my nose; but I couldn't dine off that, 
though it was very agreeable. 

" Don't you think, my dear, it would 
be better for you to remonstrate with 
Mary Anne ?" 

" Oh, no, please ! T couldn't, Doady !" 

" Why not, my love ? " 

" Oh, because I am such a little goose, 
and she knows I am ! " 

I thought this sentiment so incompat- 
ible with the establishment of any system 
of check on Mary Anne, that I frowned 
a little. 

'' My precious wife, we must be serious 
sometimes. Come ! sit down on this chair, 
close beside me ! Give me the pencil ! 
There ! Now let us talk sensibly. You 
know, dear," — what a little hand it was 
to hold, and what a tiny wedding ring it 
was to see, — " you know, my love it is not 
exactly comfortable to have to go without 
one's dinner. Now is it ?" 

" N-n-no !" replied Dora, faintly. 

" My love, how you tremble !" 

" Because, I know you're going to scold 
me." 

'^ My sweet, ] am only going to reason." 

"Oh, but reasoning is worse than scold- 
ing ! I didn't marry to be reasoned with. 
If you meant to reason with such a poor 
little thing as I am, you ought to have 
told me, so you cruel boy !" 

" Dora, my darling !" 

*^ No, I am not your darling. Becaust 
you must be sorry that you married me, 
or else you wouldn't reason with me !" 

I felt so injured by the inconsequential 
nature of this charge, that it gave me 
courage to be grave. 



103 



DAVID COPPERFIELD AND HIS CHILD-WIFE, 



" Xow, my own Dora, you are childish, 
and are talking nonsense. You must 
remember, I am sure, that I was obliged 
to go out yesterday when dinner was half 
over ; and that, the day before, I was 
made quite unwell by being obliged to 
eat underdone veal in a hurry ; to-day I 
don't dine at all, and I am afraid to say 
how long we waited for breakfast, and 
ihen the water didn't boil. I don't mean 
to reproach you, my dear, but this is not 
comfortable." 

" Oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say I am 
a disagreeable wife !" 

" Now, my dear Dora, you must know 
that I never said that !" 

" You said I wasn't comfortable !" 

"I said the housekeeping was not com- 
fortable !" 

" It's exactly the same thing ! and I 
wonder, I do, at your making such 
ungrateful speeches. When you know 
that the other day, when you said you 
would like a little bit of fish, I went out 
myself, miles and miles, and ordered it to 
surprise you." 

"• And it was very kind of you, my own 
darling ; and I felt it so much that I 
wouldn't on any account have mentioned 
that you bought a salmon, which was too 
much for two ; or that it cost one pound 
six, which was more than we can afford." 

" You enjoyed it very much," sobbed 
Dora. ^' And you said I was a Mouse." 

" And I'll say so again, my love, a thou- 
sand times ! " 

I said it a thousand times and more, 
and went on saying it until Mary Anne's 
30usin deserted into our coal-hole, and 
was brought out, tc our great amazement, 
by a picket of his companions in arms, 
who took him away handcuffed in a pro- 
cession that covered our front garden with 
disgrace. 



Everybody, we had anything to do with, 
seemed to cheat us. Our appearance in a 
shop was a signal for the damaged goods 
to be brought out immediately. If we 
bought a lobster, it was full of water. 
All our meat turned out tcugh, and there 
was hardly any crust to our loaves. 

As to the washerwoman pawning the 
clothes, and coming in a state of penitent 
intoxication to apologize, I suppose that 
might have happened several times to any- 
body. Also the chimney on fire, the par- 
ish engine, and perjury on the part of the 
beadle. But I apprehend we were per- 
sonally unfortunate in our page, whose 
principal function was to quarrel with the 
cook. We wanted to get rid of him, but 
he was very much attached to us, and 
wouldn't go, until one day he stole Dora's 
watch, then he went. 

" I am very sorry for all this, Doady," 
said Dora. " Will you call me a name I 
want you to call me ? " 

"What is it, my dear?" 

"It's a stupid name, — Child-wife. 
^Mien you are going to be angry with me, 
say to yourself, ' It's only my Child-wife.' 
When I am very disappointing, say, ' I 
knew a long time ago, that she would 
make but a Child-wife.' When you miss 
w^hat you would like me to be, and what 
I should like to be, and what I think I 
never can be, say, ' Still my foolish Child- 
wife loves me.' For indeed I do." 

I invoke the innocent figure that I 
dearly loved to come out of the mists and 
shadows of the past, and to turn its gen- 
tle head towards me once again, and to 
bear w^itness that it was made happy by 
what I answered. 

CHARLES DICKENS. 



104 



H- THE HOME. 




^05^ 




>■• ',i'-r.'.'ji. i r 






i^iiJlllllllllilillilliiil!!^ 



^'^^■^^^^fK. 






NEWS FROM HOME, 
100 






Hews Ri^om P^omb, 



'HEN the heart is very dreary, 
Growing sadly over-weary 

Of the bonds that keep it lonely 
Like a bird in wicker dome, 
Comes a messenger most cheery, 

Though it be a letter only, 
For a mother Avrote that " dearie," 
And it bringeth news from home. 

" News from home ! " oh, welcome letter ! 
Strong in power to break the fetter 
That encircles her who labors 
Far away from all held dear. 



Yet it proves the proverb truly 

Tells that joy and grief are neighbors 
For from eyes that grow unruly 
Slowly wells a glist'ning tear. 

Present sorrows wings are taking, 
Pleasant memories are waking. 
And Life's sun bedecks with splendor 
Her whom duty called to roam ; 
Yet the sympathy that's hidden 

In those lines so sweet and tender 
Makes the tears rise up unbidden 

O'er the welcome "new's from home. 




THE HOME MULTIPLIES HAPPINESS. 



THE road into happiness is always 
the road out of self. When one 
has no one for whom he cares more 
than for himself, the cup of his happiness 
is very small. The babe, only able to use 
a rattle, can have but little joy compared 
with its delight when it can pour itself 
out for some loved one. Other friend- 
ships than those of the family last with 
the sunshine. But into every life some 
rain must fall. Then, worn with the rude 
shocks against the rough world, one 
returns to his quiet family to be soothed 
and re-established in the eternal verities 
of fidelity and integrity. The comforts 
may be few, but so long as these are not 
placed above their true rank, and tlie 
deeper and abiding realities of the heart 
lire emphasized, there is sure to come a 
Hood of comfort that makes oiic ready for 
another strife with the world. 



JOYS OF HOME. 

SWEET are the joys of home, 
And puro as sweet; for tbey 
Like dews ot morn and evening come, 
To make and close the day 

The world hath its delights. 
And its delusions, too ; 
But home to calmer bliss invites, 
More tranquil and more true. 

The mountain flood is strong. 
But fearful in its pride ; 
While gently rolls the stream alon^ 
The peaceful valley's side. 

Life's charities, like light. 

Spread smilingly afar ; 

But stars approached, become more bright. 

And home is life's own star. 

The pilgrim's step in vain 
Seeks Eden's sacred ground ! 
But in home's holy joys again 
An Eden may be found. 

A glance of heaven to see, 
To none on earth is given ; 
And yet a happy family 
Is but an earlier heaven. 

JOHN BOW RING, 



107 



THB HOlVrE. 



|r^ 




5OME begins now^ as it began 
in Paradise, with the smallest 
number that can change soli- 
tude to society, and it em- 
(j^Jl\ braces all the duties and 

relations that can be found 
e//// in mighty states and long 

T/A* ages and countless millions. 

In the family are supremacy 
and subordination, depend- 
ence and support, discipline and indul- 
gence, suffering and sympathy, independ- 
ence and co-operation, weakness and 
strength, truthfulness and trust, self- 
denial and self-respect, unswerving honor 
and undying love. All these mutual re- 
lations take the simplest form in the 
family, and from the faithful observance 
of the mutual duties which they enjoin 
spring all the great virtues and glorious 
victories which build states and defend 
nations and enlighten the world. The 
purest and noblest elements of character 
are learned first and best in that most 
ancient and sacred school where love is 
the supreme law and experience is the 
wisest teacher and the highest happiness 
is found in making others happy. 

Whoever has a heart must have a home. 
The affections are like the tendrils of the 
vine. They must have something to cling 
to, or they wither away and die. The 
weak need the courage and the protection of 
the strong, and the strong need the grace 
and gentleness of the weak. And when 
the two are bound to each other by ties 
of mutual affection, the deficiency of the 
one develops and adorns the excellence of 
the other, and the two are complete in one. 
The graceful scroll and the delicate leaf- 
age of the capital are a fitting crown for 



the massive column, and both unite in the 
perfect union of beauty and strength. 

There was no love and no sympathy in 
Paradise, and the perfect life of the first 
man had not begun, until heart answered 
to heart and hand joined with hand in 
mutual grasp. This sacred and divine 
union is symbolized by all the forms and 
forces of nature. Everything goes by 
pairs and combinations. We have two 
eyes, but one sight ; two ears, but no divi- 
sion of sound. The nerves of touch in the 
two hands carry one report to the brain. 
It takes two feet to perform the one act of 
walking, two classes of conductors to keep 
up the connection between mind and its 
material frame. 

All modes and experiences of life are 
twofold, and one part is in correspondence 
with the other. Work and play, wear- 
iness and rest, sleeping and waking, pain 
and pleasure, laughing and weeping, hope 
and fear, joy and sorrow, are the two sides 
of one life, and to be complete in manhood 
we must have a capacity for both. The 
succession of day and night, heat and cold, 
summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, 
is maintained by the perfect balancing of 
two forces, either of which acting sepa- 
rately would make the universe a desola- 
tion. Nothing is made to stand alone. 
If there be want in one place, there must 
be abundance in another. The existence 
of the demand proves the possibility of a 
supply. For God has made all things to 
be in correspondence, all forces and beings 
to act in harmony. The craving of the 
human heart for companionship proves 
that solitude is a violation of nature and 
that man was not meant to be alone. 



108 



THE HOME, 



The first divine and perfect society, that 
which God himself instituted and blessed 
in Paradise, is marriage, and it still exists 
as God's ordinance with the blessing of 
Paradise unrecalled. The fairest and ful- 
lest semblance of the best state of inno- 
cence and happiness still remaining on 
earth is to be found in a home where hus- 
band and wife keep the vow and cov- 
enant between them made, and ever abide 
in perfect love and peace together, so 
living in this life that in the world to 
come they may have life everlasting. 
You may travel to the ends of the earth 
in search of the lost Eden, and you will 
never find it, so long as you seek alone. 
It will come unsought to those who keep 
the humblest home in perfect love and 
peace together. The most of heaven is 
found by those who keep their own home 
as the first pair were appointed to keep 
their garden of delight — in love, obedience 
and trust. 

The sacred permanency of the covenant 
of marriage is essential to its purity and a 
part of the divine ordinance which ap- 
pointed the family to be the school of 
virtue, the sanctuary of faith and the home 
of affection for the world. The time of 
degeneracy and darkness and destruction 
has already come to a nation where home 
has lost its sacredness and man has learned 
lightly to put asunder those whom God 
hath solemnly joined together. True 
marriage is a spiritual union in which 
mind, thought, feeling, soul, conscience, 
affection, blend together to build up one 
pure, strong, harmonious and happy life. 
The higher nature selects tlie companion 
and seals the covenant, and thus continu- 
ally refines and tranquilizes the impulses 
of passion. 

Man is made more manly and woman 
more womanly by the divine covenant 
which makes them one in love and duty, 



in joy and sorrow, to the end of life's 
journey. Every blessing is increased by 
mutual participation, and the sting is 
plucked from the keenest sorrow by the 
touch of mutual affection. The coldness 
and isolation of the world give place to 
tenderness and sympathy. Feeling and 
interest, preference and pleasure, self- 
denial and duty, flow in the same channel 
and give strength and beauty to common 
life. So God sets the solitary in families 
that they may enrich and adorn earthly 
homes with the peace and tranquillity of 
heaven. The family is the training- 
school for that blessed society where love 
is the sole law and all are children in the 
home of one Father. 

Marriage was needed to complete the 
life and being of the sinless and the 
happy. Much more is it needed to pro- 
tect and purify the life of the fallen and 
afilicted. The whole mental, moral and 
physical constitution of man is a revelation 
of God's will and way of guiding, in- 
structing, ennobling and perfecting his 
earthly children. Whoever would expand 
and exalt his own nature must do it in 
God's appointed way, in accordance with 
the constitution and laws of his own being. 
He must enter into that most ancient and 
sacred society which was ordained before 
sin was in the world, and which is still 
God's chosen instrument for bringing his 
earthly children back to the lost happi- 
ness of Eden. Anything which throws 
discredit upon that divine ordinance stands 
in the way of the highest improvement of 
the human race. The divine displeasure 
must rest upon all those social usages, 
modes of living, tastes, habits and opinions 
which unfit and indispose men and women 
to enter into the holy society of the fiimily, 
and leave them to pursue the journey of 
life companionless and alone. 

PANIEl, MARCH, D. D. 



100 



HOME, THE CRADLE OF THE VIRTUES. 



THE home is the cradle of the great 
virtues. The church was organized 
in the family. The power to com- 
mand his household and his children 
after him was the spring of Abraham's 
call to be the Father of the faithful and 
founder of the church. There is one bond 
that encircles earth and heaven. It is 
woven from the most tender longings and 
hunger of the human heart. It binds the 
humblest home on earth to the Home of 
our Father on high. It domesticates the 
angels in cabins. The love of mother is 
often the last cable that holds a youth to 
his moorings. Beaten upon by the storm 
of his passions, every other stay gives way. 
Every other anchor drags. But the love 
of mother that was dropped deep into his 
soul's substance before he got out of the 
nursery, holds. While that holds, he is 
almost certain to outride the wildest gales. 
So the Home which is the sanctuary 
where this spirit presides, is a perpetual 
protection. It is an ark floating with us 
down the tide of the years. It carries the 
virtues that make the citizen, and the in- 
spiration that develops the saint. It is 
not merely a shelter from the storm, it is 
also a workshop, where the grandest 
characters are built. It is a pre-eminent 
opportunity for the achievement of good. 
To miss this chief purpose of the home is, 
to lower its grade. 



How many years a mortal man may live. 
When this is known, then to divide the 

times : — 
So many hours must I tend my flock ; 
So many hours must I take my rest; 
So many hours must I contemplate ; 
So many hours must I sport myself; 
So many days my ewes have been with young; 
So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean ; 
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece i 
So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and 

yea^s, 
Passed over to the end they were created, 
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. 
Ah, what a life were this ! how sweet I how 

lovely ! 
Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade 
To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, 
Than doth a rich embroidered canopy 
To kings that fear their subjects' treachery? 

SHAKESPEARE. 



A GODLY HOME. 

ARE you not surprised to find how in- 
dependent of money peace of con- 
science is, and how much happiness 
can be condensed in the humblest home? 
A cottage will not hold the bulky furni- 
ture and sumptuous accommodations of a 
mansion ; but if God be there, a cottage 
will hold as much happiness as might 
stock a palace. 

D R. J. HAMILTON. 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE. 



H O NI K 



FROM "THIRD PART OF HEKRY VI.," ACT II. SC. 5. 

KING HENRY. OGod! methinks, it 
were a happy life, 
To be no better than a homely 
swain ; 
To sit upon a hill, as I do now, 
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, 
Thereby to see the minutes how they run : 
How many makes the hour full complete, 
How many hours bring about the day, 
How many days will finish up the year, 



CLING to thy home ! if there the meanest 
shed 
Yield thee a hearth and shelter for thy head, 
And some poor plot, with vegetables stored, 
Be all that Heaven allots thee for thy board, — 
Unsavory bread, and herbs that scattered grow 
Wild on the river brink or mountain brow. 
Yet e'en this cheerless mansion shall provide 
More heart's repose than all the world beside. 
From the Greek of LeonidAS, 
by Robert Bland. 



110 



BY THE FIRESIDE. 



WHAT is it fades and flickers in the 
fire, 
Mutters and sighs, and yields re- 
luctant breath, 
As if in the red embers some desire, 
Some word prophetic burned, defying 
death ? 

Lords of the forest, stalwart oak and pine, 
Lie down for us in flames of martyrdom : 

A human, household warmth, their death 
fires shine; 
Yet fragrant with high memories they come. 

Bringing the mountain- winds that in their 
boughs 

Sang of the torrent, and the plashy edge 
Of storm-swept lakes ; and echoes that arouse 

The eagles from a splintered eyrie ledge ; 

And breath of violets sweet about their roots ; 

And earthy odors of the moss and fern ; 
And hum of rivulets ; smell of ripening fruits ; 

And green leaves that to gold and crimson 
turn. 

What clear Septembers fade out in a spark ! 

What rare Octobers drop with every coal ! 
Within these costly ashes, dumb and dark. 

Are hid spring's budding hope, and sum- 
mer's soul. 

Pictures far lovelier smoulder in the fire. 
Visions of friends who walked among these 
trees, 
Whose presence, like the free air, could in- 
spire 
A winged life and boundless sympathies. 

Eyes with a glow like that in the brown beech, 
When sunset through its autumn beauty 
shines ; 
Or the blue gentian's look of silent speech, 
To heaven appealing as earth's light de- 
clines ; 

Voices and steps forever fled away 

From the familiar glens, the haunted hills, — 

Most pitiful and strange it is to stay 
Without you in a world your lost love fills. 

Do you forget us, — under Eden trees. 

Or in full sunshine on the hills of God, — 
Who miss you from the shadow and the 
breeze. 
And tints and perfumes of the woodland 
sod? 



Dear, for your sake the fireside where we sit 
Watching these sad, bright pictures come 
and go ; 

That waning years are with your memory lit 
Is the one lonely comfort that we know. 

Is it all memory? Lo, these forest-boughs 
Burst on the hearth into fresh leaf and 
bloom ; 
Waft a vague, far-off* sweetness through the 
house, 
And give close-walls the hillside's breathing- 
room. 

A second life, more spiritual than the first. 
They find, — a life won only out of death. 

O sainted souls, within you still is nursed 
For us a flame not fed by mortal breath. 

Unseen, ye bring to us, who love and wait. 
Wafts from the heavenly hills, immortal air ; 

No flood can quench your hearts' warmth, or 
abate ; 
Ye are our gladness, here and everywhere. 

LUCY LARGO M. 



MY AIN FIRESIDE. 

IHAE seen great aiies and sat in great ha's, 
'Mang lords and flne ladies a' covered wi' 
braws. 
At feasts made for princes wi' princes I've 

been. 
When the grand shine o' splendor has dazzled 

my een : 
But a sight sae delightfu' I trow I ne'er spied 
As the bonny blithe blink o' my ain fireside. 
My ain fireside, my ain fireside, 
O, cheery 's the blink 'o my ain fireside ; 
My ain fireside, my ain fireside, 
0, there's naught to compare wi' ane's ain 

fireside. 
Ance mair, Gude be thankit, round my ain 

heartsome ingle, 
Wi' the friends o' my youth I cordially min- 
gle ; 
Nae forms to compel me to seem wae or glad, 
I may laugh when I'm merry, and sigh wheii 

I'm sad. 
Nae falsehood to dread, and nae malice to 

fear. 
But truth to delight me, and friendship to 

cheer ; 
Of a' roads to happiness ever were tried, 



111 



MV Am FIRESIDE, 



There's nane half so sure as ane'sain fireside. Happy with fortune that words cannot 



My ain fireside, my ain fireside, 
O, there's naught to compare wi' ane's ain 
fireside. 

WTien I draw in my stool on my cozy hearth- 

stane. 
My heart loups sae light I scarce ken't for my 

ain; 
Care's doT\Ti on the Tisdnd, it is clean out o' 

sight. 
Past troubles they seem but as dreams o' the 

night. 
I hear but kend voices, kend faces I see, 
And mark saft affection glent frae ilk ee ; 
Xae fleechings o' flattery, nae boastings o' 

pride, 
'T is heart speaks to heart at ane's ain fireside. 
My ain fireside, my ain fireside, 
O, there's naught to compare wi' ane's ain 

fireside. 

ELIZABETH HAMILTON. 



A SONG FOR HEARTH AND HOME. 

HP^ARK is the night, and fitful and drearily 
Rushes the wind like the waves of 
the sea ; 
Little care I, as here I sit cheerily, 
Wife at my side and my baby on knee. 

King, king, crown me the king : 
Home is the kingdom, and Love is 
the king! 

Flashes the firelight upon the dear faces, 
Dearer and dearer and onward we go, 
Forces the shadow behind us, and places 
Brightness around us with warmth in the 
glow. 
King, king, crown me the king : 
Home is the kingdom, and Love is the 
king! 

Flashes the lovelight, increasing the glory, 
Beaming from bright eyes with warmth of 
the soul, 
Telling of trust and content the sweet story. 
Lifting the shadows that over us roll. 
King, king, crown me the king: 
Home is the kingdom, and Love is the 
king ! 

Richer than miser, with perishing treasure, 
Served with a service no conquest could 



measure. 
Light-hearted I on the hearthstone can sing. 
King, king, crown me the king : 
Home is the kingdom, and Love is the 
king! 

WILLIAM R. DURYEA. 



bring; 



• A IIHTER-EYEMIMG HYM TO MY FIRE. 

y^^ THOU of home the guardian Lar, 
f% lii And, when our earth hath wandered 

^ Into the cold, and deep snow covers 
The walks of our Js'ew England lovers. 
Their sweet secluded evening-star ! 
'Twas with thy rays the English Muse 
Ripened her mild domestic hues ; 
'T was by thy flicker that she conned 
The fireside wisdom that enrings 
With light from heaven familiar things; 
By thee she found the homely faith 
In whose mild eyes thy comfort stay'th, 
"When Death, extinguishing his torch. 
Gropes for the latch-string in the porch ; 
The love that wanders not beyond 
His earliest nest, but sits and sings 
While children smooth his patient "v\dngs : 
Therefore with thee I love to read 
Our brave old poets : at thy touch how stirs 
Life in the withered words ! how swift recede 
Time's shadows ! and how glows again 
Through its dead mass the incandescent verse. 
As when upon the anvils of the brain 
It glittering lay, cyclopically wrought 
By the fast-throbbing hammers of the poet's 

thought ! 
Thou murmurest, too, di^dnely stirred. 
The aspirations unattained, 
The rhythms so rathe and delicate, 
They bent and strained 
And broke, beneath the sombre weight 
Of any airiest mortal word. 

What warm protection dost thou bend 
Round curtained talk of friend with friend. 
While the gray snow-storm, held aloof, 
To softest outline rounds the roof. 
Or the rude ^orth with baffled strain 
Shoulders the frost-starred window pane I 
Now the kind nymph to Bacchus borne 
By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems 



112 



A WINTER EVENING HYMN TO MY FIRE, 



Gifted tipon her natal morn 

By him with fire ' V her with dreams, 

Nicotia, dearer to the Muse 

Than all the grapes' bewildering juice, 

We worship, unforbid of thee ; 

And, as her incense floats and curls 

In airy spires and wayward whirls, 

Or poises on its tremulous stalk 

A flower of frailest revery. 

So winds and loiters, idly free, 

The current of unguided talk, 

Kow laughter-rippled, and now caught 

In smooth dark pools of deeper thought. 

Meanwhile thou mellowest every word, 

A sweetly unobtrusive third ; - 

For thou hast magic beyond wine. 

To unlock natures each to each ; 

The unspoken thought thou canst divine; 

Thou fili'st the pauses of the speech 

With whispers that to dream-land reach, 

And frozen fancy-springs unchain 

In Arctic outskirts of the brain; 

Sun of all inmcst confidences. 

To thy rays doth the heart unclose 

Its formal calyx of pretences. 

That close against rude day's off'ences, 

And open its shy midnight rose ! 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, 



I KNEW BY THE SMOKE THAT SO 
GRACEFULLY CURLED. 

I KNEW by the smoke that so gracefully 
curled 
Above the green elms, that a cottage 
was near. 
And I said; "If there's peace to be found in 
the world, 
A heart that is humble might hope for it 
here ! " 

It was noon, and on flowers that languished 
around 
In silence reposed the voluptuous bee ; 
Every leaf was at rest, and 1 heard not a 
sound 
But the woodpecker tapping the hollow 
beech-tree. 

And " Here in this lo:ie little wood," I ex- 
claimed, 
"With a maid who was lovely to soul and 
to eye, 



Who would blush when I praised her, and 
weep if I blamed. 
How blest could I live, and how calm could 
Idle! 

"By the shade of yon sumach, whose red 
berry dips 
In the gush of the fountain, how sweet to 
recline, 
And know that I sighed upon innocent lips, 
Which had never been sighed on by any but 
mine ! " 

THOMAS MOORE. 



W 



A hoivce:. 

HAT is a home ? A guarded space 
Wherein a fcAV, unfairly blest 
Shall sit together, face to face, 
And bask and purr, and be 
at rest? 



Where cushioned walls rise up between 
Its inmates and the common air, 

The common pain, and pad, and screen 
From blows of fate or winds of care ? 

Where Art may blossom strong and free, 
And Pleasure furl her silken wing, 

And every laden moment be 
A precious and peculiar thing ? 

And past and future, softly veiled 
In hiding mists, shall float and lie 

Forgotten half, and unassailed 
By either Hope or Memory. 

While the luxurious Present weaves 
Her perfumed spells untried, untrue, 

'Broiders her garments, heaps her sheaves, 
All for che pleasure of a few ? 

Can it be this — the longed-for thing 
W^hich wanderers on the restless foam, 

Unsheltered beggars, birds on wing 

Aspire to, dream of, christen "Home?" 

No. Art may bloom, and peace and bliss .^ 
Grief may refrain and Dcuitli forget; 

But if there be no more than this 
The soul of home is wanting yet. 

Dim image from far glory caught, 
Fair type of fairer things to be, 



8c 



113 



A HOME. 



The true home rises in our thought 
As beacon for all men to see. 

Its lamps burn freely in the night; 

Its fire-glows unchidden shed 
Their cheering and abounding light 

On homeless folk uncomforted. 

Each sweet and secret thing within 
Gives out a fragrance on the air — 

A thankful breath sent forth to win 
A little smile from others' care. 

The few, they bask in closer heat ; 

The many catch the further ray. 
Life higher seems, the world more sweet, 

And hope and Heaven less far away. 

So the old miracle anew 

Is wrought on earth and proved good, 
And crumbs apportioned for a few, 

God-blessed, suffice a multitude. 

SUSAN COOLEDGE. 



FAMILY LIFE A TEST OF PIETY. 

IT is in the family life that a man's 
piety gets tested. Let the husband 
be cross and surly, giving a snap 
here and a cuff there, and see how out of 
sorts everything gets! The wife grows 
cold and unamiable, too. Both are tuned 
on one key. They vibrate in unison, giv- 
ing tone for tone, rising in harmony or 
discord together. The children grow up 
saucy, and savage as young bears. The 
father becomes callous, peevish, hard, a 
kind of two-legged brute with clothes on. 
The wife bristles in self-defence. They 
develop an unnatural growth and sharp- 
ness of teeth ; and the house is haunted 
by ugliness and domestic brawls. 

Is that what God meant the family to 
be — He who made it a place for love to 
build her nest in, and where kindness and 
sweet courtesy might come to their finest 
manifestations? The divine idea can be 
realized. There is sunshine enough in the 
world to warm all. Why will not men 



come out of their caves to enjoy it? Some 
men make it a point to treat every other 
man's wife well but their own, — have 
smiles for all but their kindred. Strange, 
pitiable picture of human weakness, when 
those we love best are treated worst ; when 
courtesy is shown to all save our friends ! 
If one must be rude to any, let it be to 
some one he does not love — not to wife, 
sister, brother or parent. 

Let one of our loved ones be taken away, 
and memory recalls a thousand sayings to 
regret. Death quickens recollection pain- 
fully. The grave can not hide the white 
faces of those who sleep. The coffin and 
the green mound are cruel magnets. They 
draw us farther than we would go. They 
force us to remember. A man never sees 
so far into human life as when he looks 
over a wife's or mother's grave* His eyes 
get wondrous clear then, and he sees as 
never before what it is to love and be 
loved ; what it is to injure the feelings of 
the loved. golden rulb. 

A WISH. 

^H^INE be a cot beside the hill ; 
^^^ A beehive's hum shall soothe my 

ear; 
A willowy brook that turns a mill, 
With many a fall shall linger near. 

The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch 
Shall twitter from her clay-built nest ; 
Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch. 
And share my meal, a welcome guest. 

Around my ivied porch shall spring 
Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew : 
And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing 
In russet gown and apron blue. 

The village church among the trees, 
Where first our marriage- vows were given, 
With merry peals shall swell the breeze 
And point with taper spire to heaven. 



SAMUEL ROGERS, 



114 



THE LOVE OF HOME, 



Jf ND let me linger in this place for an 
M instant to remark, if ever household 
*^\ affections and loves are graceful 
'^ things, they are graceful in the 
poor. The ties that bind the wealthy and 
the proud to home may be forged on earth, 
but those which link the poor man to his 
humble hearth are of the truer material 
and bear the stamp of Heaven. The man 
of high descent may love the halls and 
lands of his inheritance as a part of him- 
self; as trophies of his birth and power : 
his associations with them are associations 
of pride, and wealth and triumph : the 
poor man's attachment to the tenement 
he holds, which strangers have held before, 
and may to-morrow occupy again, has a 
worthier root, struck deep into a purer 
soil. His household gods are of flesh and 
blood, with no alloy of silver, gold or pre- 
cious stones ; he has no property but in 
the affections of his own heart ; and when 
they endear bare floors and walls, despite 
of rags and toil and scanty fare, that man 
has his love of home from God, and his 
rude hut becomes a solemn place. 

Oh ! if those who rule the destinies of 
nations would but remember this — if they 
would but think how hard it is for the 
very poor to have engendered in their 
hearts that love of home from which all 
domestic virtues spring, when they live 
in dense and squalid masses where social 
decency is lost, or rather never found, — 
if they would but turn aside from the 
wide thoroughfares and great houses, and 
strive to improve the wretched dwellings 
in by-ways, where only poverty may walk, 
— many low roofs would point more truly 
to the sky, than the loftiest steeple that 
new rears proudly up from the midst of 
guilt and crime, and horrible disease to 
mock them by its contrast. In hollow 
voices from workhouse, hospital and 
jail, this truth is preached from day to 
day, and has been proclaimed for years. 
It is no light matter — no outcry from the 



working vulgar — no mere question of the 
people's health and comforts that may be 
whistled down on Wednesday nights. In 
love of home, the love of country has its rise; 
and who are the truer patriots, or the bet- 
ter in time of need — those who venerate 
the land, owning its wood, and stream, and 
earth, and all that they produce — or those 
who love their country, boasting not a 
foot of ground in all its wide domain ? 

CHARLES DICKENS, 



DEFINITION OF HOME. 

TJ OME is the one place in aU this world 
^ ^ where hearts are sure of each other. 
It is the place of confidence. It is the 
place where we tear off that mask of 
guarded and suspicious coldness W'hich 
the world forces us to wear in self-defence, 
and where we pour out the unreserved 
communications of full and confiding 
hearts. It is the spot where expressions 
of tenderness gush out without any sensa- 
tion of awkwardness, and without any 
dread of ridicule. 

F. W. ROBERTSON. 




THE LIGHT OF HOME. 

^Y boy, thou wilt dream the world is 
fair, 
And thy spirit will sigh to roam, 
And thou must go, but never when there 
Forget the light of Home. 

Though pleasure may smile with a ray more 
bright, 
It dazzles to lead astray ; 
Like the meteor's flash 't will deepen the 
night, 
^^^len thou treadest the lonely way. 

But the hearth of Home has a constant flamt^ 

And pure as vestal fire ; 
*T will burn, 't will burn forever the same, 

For nature feeds the pyre. 

The sea of ambition is tempest-tost, 
And thy hopes may vanish like foam; 



115 



THE LIGHT OF HOME. 



But when sails are shivered, and rudder lost. 
Then look to the light of Home : — 

And then like a star through the midnight 
cloud 

Tliou shalt see the beacon bright, 
For never, till shining on thy shroud. 

Can be quenched its holy light. 

The sun of fame ?— 't will gild the name. 

But the heart ne'er felt its ray ; 
And fashion's smiles that rich ones claim, 

Are but beams of a wintry day. 

And how cold and dim these beams must be, 
Should life's wretched wanderer come ! 

But my boy, when the world is dark to thee, 
Then turn to the light of Home. 

SARAH HALE. 







HOME. 

VEE, dark fields, and rivers deep and cold, 
And fen-land waste and drear, 
Flies the glad message on a wire of gold, 
" Home and true hearts are here ! " 



Fain would I hide me from the icy blast, 

But yet it may not be ; 
So, with averted eyes, I hurry past 

The firelight and the glee^ 

Home! gasps my home-sick spirit, and I 
bound 

Onward and onward still ; 
Glad when in distance dies the siren sound, 

That might have warped my will. 

And as at Vngth I fling the wintry gloom 

And peri.s far behind ; 
The twinkling point becomes a fire-lit room. 

And rest, and peace of mind. 

And happy faces, and a loyal wife. 

Whose pulses ever beat 
One tune amid the treacherous chords of life. 
Unchanging, true and sweet. 

5o, from the lattice in the sapphire keep, 

(Where lie the treasures true) 
^ line of glory threads the mazy deep, 

A voice comes out to woo. 

^ire is the lamp that guides our feet on high, 
And sweet the gentle call, 



So soft around Love's silken fetters lie. 
There is no sense of thrall, 

As to one goal we move, a pilgrim band, 

Chastened by tears and pain. 
Thorns hedging up the way on either hand, 

Lest we should run in vain. 

G. S. OUTRAM. 



HOME AGAIN. 

HOME again ; mother, your boy will rest 
For a time, at least, in the old home nest 
How good to see you in your cornered 
nook 
With knitting, or sewing, or paper, or book, 
The same sweet mother my boyhood knew, 
The faithful, the patient, the tender and true. 

You have little changed; ah, well maybe 
A few gray hairs in the brown I see; 
A mark or two, under smiling eyes, 
So lovingly bent in your glad surprise ; 
'Tis I who have changed ; ah, mother mine. 
From a teasing lad, to manhood's prime. 

No longer I climb on your knee at night 

For a story told in the soft firelight; 

No broken slate or book all torn. 

Do I bring to you with its edges worn : 

But I'll come to you with my graver cares. 

You'll help me bear them with tender prayers. 

I'll come again as of old — and you 
Will help the man to be brave and true ; 
For the man's the boy, only older grown. 
And the world has many a stumbling stone. ' 
Ah, mother mine, there is always rest 
When I find you here in the old home nest. 

ABBIE C. M'KEEVER. 



WE CAN MAKE HOME HAPPY. 

THOUGH we may not change the cottage 
For a mansion tall and grand. 
Or exchange a little grass-plat 
For a boundless stretch of land- 
Yet there's something brighter, dearer, 
Than the wealth we'd thus command. 

Though we have no means to purchase 
Costly pictures, rich and rare — • 

Though we have no silken hangings 
For the walls so cold and bare^ 



116 



IVE CAN MAKE HOME HAPPY. 



We can hang them o'er with garlands, 
For flowers bloom everywhere. 

We can always make home cheerful, 
If the right course we begin ; 

We can make its inmates happy. 
And their truest blessings win; 

It will make the small room brighter 
If we let the sunlight in. 

We can gather round the fireside 
When the evening hours are long; 

We can blend our hearts and voices 
In a happy social song ; 

We can guide some erring brother, 
Lead him from the path of wrong. 

We may fill our home with music, 
And with sunshine brimming o'er. 

If against all dark intruders 
We will firmly close the door — 

Yet should evil shadows enter, 
We must love each other more. 

There are treasures for the lowly 
Which the grandest fail to find ; 

There is a chain of sweet affection 
Binding friends of kindred mind — 

We may reap the choicest blessings 
From the poorest lot assigned. 



A PICTURE. 

mHE farmer sat in his easy-chair. 
Smoking his pipe of clay. 
While his hale old wife, with busy care. 
Was clearing the dinner away ; 
A sweet little girl, with fine blue eyes, 
On her grandfather's knee was catching flies. 

The old man laid his hand on her head, 
With a tear on his wrinkled face ; 

He thought how often her mother, dead. 
Had sat in the self-same place. 

As the tear stole down from his half-shut eye, 

"Don't smoke!" said the child; "how it 
makes you 3ry ! " 

The house-dog lay stretched out on the floor, 
Where the shade after noon used to steal ; 

The busy old wife, by the open door, 
Was turning the spinning-wheel ; 

And the old brass clock on the mantle-tree 

Had plodded along to almost three. 



Still the farmer sat in his easy-chair. 
While close to his heaving breast 

The moistened brow and the cheek so fair 
Of his sweet grandchild were pressed; 

His head, bent down, on her soft hair lay : 

Fast asleep were they both, that summer day ! 

CHARLES GAMAGE EASTM/N. 



HEART-REST. 

FROM ''PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE." 

THE heart of man, walk it which way it 
will. 
Sequestered or frequented, smooth or 
rough, 
Down the deep valley amongst tinkling flocks, 
Or mid the clang of trumpets and the march 
Of clattering ordnance, still must have its 

halt, 
Its hour of truce, its instant of repose. 
Its inn of rest ; and craving still must seek 
The food of its aff'ections — still must slake 
Its constant thirst of what is fresh and pure, 
And pleasant to behold. 

HENRY TAYLOR. 




ODE TO SOLITUDE. 

'(^^APPY the man, whose wish and care 
'ft^E ^ ^^^^ paternal acres bound, 

Content to breathe his native air 
In his own ground. 

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with 

bread. 
Whose flocks supply him with attire ; 
Whose trees in summer yield him shade, 
In winter, fire. 

Blest, who can unconcern'dly find 
Hours, days, and years slide soft away 
In health of body, peace of mind. 
Quiet by day. 

Sound sleep by night ; study and ease 
Together mixed ; sweet recreation, 
And innocence, which most does please 
With meditation. 

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown ; 
Thus unlamented let me die ; 
Steal from the world, and not a stone 
Tell where I lie. 

ALEXANpEI^ ?Q?8« 



U7 



HOME RELIGION. 



A HOUSE may be full of persons who 
are very dear to each other, very 
kind to each other ; full of precious 
things, — affections hopes, living interests ; 
but if God is not there as the Ruler and 
Father of the House, the original and true 
idea of home will not be realized ; vacancy 
and need will still be at the heart of all. 
Good things will grow feebly and uncer- 
tainly, like flowers in winter, trying to 
peep out into the sunshine, yet shrinking 
from the blast. Evil things will grow 
with strange persistency, notwithstanding 
protests of the affections and efforts of the 
will. Mysterious gulfs will open at times 
where it was thought strong foundations 
had been laid. Little things will produce 
great distress. Great things, when at- 
tained, will shrink to littleness. Flicker- 
rugs of uncertainty and fear will run 
along the days. Joys will not satisfy. 
Sorrow will surprise. 

In the very heart of the godless home 
there will be sickness, arising from need 
unsatisfied and " hope deferred." It will 
be as when a man of ingenuity tries in 
vain to put together the separated parts 
of a complicated piece of mechanism. 
He tries in this way and that, puts the 
pieces into every conceivable mode of 
arrangement, then at last stops, and says : 
*^ There must be a piece wanting." 

Home without Divine presence is at 
best a moral structure with the central 
element wanting. The other elements 
may be arranged and re-arranged; they 
will never exactly fit, nor be "compact 
together," until it is obtained. We have 
heard of haunted houses. That house 
will be haunted with the ghost of an un- 
realized idea. It will seem to its most 
thoughtful inmates at best but "the 
shadow of some good thing to come;" 
and the longing for the substance will be 
the more intense, because the shadow, as 
a providential prophecy, is always there. 

In many a house there is going on, by 
means of those c^uick spiritual sighs by 



which One above can read, what we may 
call a dialogue of souls, composed chiefly 
of unspoken questions, which, if articu- 
late, might be something like the follow- 
ing : — " How is it that we cannot be to 
each other as we wish, that we cannot do 
for each other what we try, even when it 
seems to be quite within the range of pos- 
sibility ? Why is there such a sorrow in 
our affection? such a trembling in our 
joys? so great a fear of change, and so 
profound a sense of incompleteness in 
connection with the very best we can do 
and be?" 

And what is the answer to such mute yet 
eager questionings ? And who can speak 
that answer? That One above who hears 
the dialogue must take part in it ; and all 
must listen while he speaks, and tells of 
another fatherhood, under which the 
parents must become little children, of 
another brotherhood which, when attained, 
will make the circle complete. When the 
members of such a household, who have 
been looking so much to each other, shall 
agree to give one earnest look above, and 
say, " Our Father, which art in heaven ! " 
" our elder Brother, and Advocate with 
the Father ! " then will come back, sweet 
as music, into the heart of that house, 
these fulfilling words from the everlast- 
ing Father, " Ye shall be my sons 
and daughters ; " from the eternal Son, 
" Behold my mother and sister and 
brother ! " Then the one thing that was 
lacking will be present. The missing ele- 
ment will be in its place, and all the other 
elements wiU be assembled around it. It 
is a haunted house no more. The ghost 
has been chased away. The house is 
wholesome. Mornings are welcome. — 
Nights are restful. The aching sorrow 
has passed away now from the heart of that 
home. The long-sought secret is revealed. 
Soul whispers to soul, " Emmanuel, God 
with us." Home is home at last. 



MOTHER'S TREASURY, 



118 



THE HOME BUILDS THE HOUSE. 



THE divine idea of home-life types 
the building. There is something 
in every germ of life which deter- 
mines its form. Time and oppor- 
tunity bring out only this ideal. The 
germ of a kernel of barley can be matured, 
not into a stalk and head of wheat, but 
into a stalk and head of barley. The 
germs of the fish and of the bird and of 
man are, at certain stages of development, 
indistinguishable. But there is always 
present a superintending spiritual power, 
too subtle for our microscopes and chem- 
istries, and determines what form each 
shall wear. The fish grows into a fish. 
The bird becomes a bird. The man 
matures into a man. Each obeys its inner 
bias. Thus the inner instinct, or thought 
of the home, fashions the house. Its 
apartments grow upon this stalk. From 
the kitchen where the animal is fed, the 
nursery where the training is ordered, the 
chamber where the recuperative forces are 
stored, the sitting room where the social 
life is nourished, to the reception room or 
parlor, where the life of society is met 
and mastered — all these grow about the 
deeper idea of home. It is this subtle and 
powerful spirit, born out of the innermost 
heart, that invariably locates the home 
where the heart is. The settler's cabin 
and the peasant's hut, clothed with this 
inspiration from the heart, become cen- 
ters of comfort and contentment that time 
is unable to drive from the mind. Life 
rises out of this inspiration to its highest 
values. Thus the home becomes the 
measure of a nation's stability. A tramp 
may become a hired soldier, but he can 
hardly rise to the promptings of patriot- 
ism. His life has too little in it to be 
worth much defending. His life is cheap. 
He waits for whatever may happen. 
When a man has a home he becomes 



immediately interested in the peace of the 
community. He has given hostages 
against mobs. It is important for him 
that the pavement stones should keep their 
places, and not go flying through the air. 
Both heads and windows acquire a sacred- 
ness from those in which he is interested. 
A man without a home has little motive 
for standing against public perils. If a 
land does not furnish a man so much as a 
home, he can drift away when it becomes 
dangerous to remain anchored. Fill any 
land with good homes, and it must be a 
good place in which to live. It is one 
peculiarity of the Anglo-Saxon peoples 
that they abound in homes The walls 
about the hearth shut out all the world, 
and shut in a kingdom. This is the fort ; 
keep it clean and free, and religion will 
thrive and liberty will dwell in the land 
forever. 



TWO PICTURES. 

^7\" N old farm-house with meadows wide, 
•J ^ And sweet with clover on each side ; 
A bright-eyed boy, who looks from 
out 
The door with woodbine wreathed about, 
And wishes his one thought all day : 
" O, if I could but fly away 

From this dull spot, the world to see, 
How happy, happy, happy. 

How happy I should be ! " 

Amid the city's constant din, 
A man who round the world has been, 
Who, mid the tumult and the throng, 
Is thinking, thinking all day long : 
" O, could I only tread once more 
The field-path to the farm-house door. 

The old, green meadow could I see. 
How happy, happy, happy, 

How happy I should be ! " 

ANNIE D. GREEN [Alarian Bouglas.) 



119 



MY OWN FIRESIDE. 



^W^ ET others seek for empty joys, 

I At ball, or concert, rout or play ; 

Lg^ Whilst, far from Fashion's idle noise, 
^ Her gilded domes and trappings gay, 

I while the wintry eve away, 

'Twixt book and lute the hours divide ; 
And marvel how I e'er could stray 

From thee — my own fireside ! 

My own fireside ! Those simple words 

Can bid the sweetest dreams arise ; 
Awaken feeling's tenderest chords, 

And fill with tears of joy mine eyes. 
What is there my wild heart can prize, 

That doth not in thy sphere abide ; 
Haunt of my home-bred sympathies. 

My own — my own fireside ! 

A gentle form is near me now ; 

A small, white hand is clasped in mine ; 
I gaze upon her placid brow, 

And ask, what joys can equal thine? 
A babe, whose beauty's half divine, 

In sleep his mother's eyes doth hide; 
Where may Love seek a fitter shrine 

Than thou— my own fireside ? 

What care I for the sullen roar 

Of winds without, that ravage earth ; 
It doth but bid me prize the more 

The shelter of thy hallowed hearth : — 
To thoughts of quiet bliss give birth ; 

Then let the churlish tempest chide, 
It cannot check the blameless mirth 

That gladdens my own fireside ! 

My refuge ever from the storm 

Of this world's passion, strife, and care ; 
Though thunder-clouds the skies deform. 

Their fury cannot reach me there ; 
There all is cheerful, calm, and fair ; 

Wrath, Envy, Malice, Strife, or Pride, 
Hath never made its hated lair 

By thee — my own fireside ! 

Thy precincts are a charmed ritig, 

Where no harsh feeling dares intrude ; 
Where life's vexations lose their sting ; 

Where even grief is half subdued ; 
And Peace, the halcyon, loves to brood 

Then let the world's proud fool deride ; 
I'll pay my debt of gratitude 

To thee — my own fireside ! 



Shrine of my household deities ; 

Bright scene of home's unsullied joys; 
To thee my burdened spirit flies, 

When Fortune frowns, or Care annoys! 
Thine is the bliss that never cloys ; 

The smile whose truth hatn oft been tried; 
What, then, are this world's tinsel toys. 

To thee — my own fireside ! 

Oh, may the yearnings, fond and sweet. 

That bid my thoughts be all of thee. 
Thus ever guide my wandering feet 

To thy heart-soothing sanctuary ! 
Whate'er my future years may be, 

Let joy or grief my fate betide; 
Be still an Eden bright to me, 

My own — my own fireside ! 

ALARIC A. WATTS, 



A HAPPY HOME DEFINED. 

SIX things are requisite to create a 
happy home. Integrity must be 
the architect, and tidiness the up- 
holsterer. It must be w^armed by 
affection, and lightened up with cheerful- 
ness, and industry must be the ventilator, 
renewing the atmosphere and bringing 
in fresh salubrity day by day ; while over 
all, as a protecting canopy and glory, 
nothing will suffice except the blessings 
of God. 

REV. DR. HAMILTON. 



THE HOME DEVELOPS CHARACTER. 

THE family is the oldest school known 
among men. Its molding and edu- 
cating work begins in that university 
where the mother's lap is the recitation 
room, the mother is the professor, and 
the mother's eye is the text-book. Schools 
come as public examinations, to determine 
or show how much the pupil has learned 
elsewhere. The Church is an after- 
thought. The family furnishes the ele- 
ments out of which later character and 
knowledge are constructed. Other means 



120 



THE HOME DEVELOPS CHARACTER. 



of influence and instruction touch the soul 
in spots, but the family furnishes an envel- 
oping atmosphere, that presses ujion the 
absorbing faculties at every point and 
through every moment. It is too easy to 
trace family marks through successive gen- 
erations. Blood runs in channels pre- 
pared by nature, but these channels may 
be reversed or broken over. A given 
amount of capacity, that is, so much blood 
and so much brain, may be brought by 
opposite environments to results as widely 
separated as the opposite poles of the 
moral universe. The man with a brogue 
in his speech, and a club in his hand, and 
a low passion in his heart, may differ from 
the statesman with a richness in his accents, 
and the reins of government in his hands, 
and a universal philanthropy in his 
heart, only by so much as the influences of 
the family in which his capacities were 
surrounded. 



COME HOME- 

'OME home, come home And where is 
home for me, 
Whose ship is driving o'er the trackless 
sea? 

To the frail bark here plunging on its way, 
To the wild waters, shall I turn and say. 
To the plunging bark, or to the salt sea foam, 
You are my home ? 

Fields once I walked in, faces once I knew, 
Familiar things so old my heart believed them 

true, 
These far, far back behind me lie ; before 
The dark clouds mutter, and the deep seas roar, 
And speak to them that 'neath and o'er them 

roam 
No words of home. 

Beyond the clouds, beyond the waves that roar, 
There may indeed, or may not be, a shore. 
Where fields as green, and hands and hearts 

as true, 
The old forgotten semblance may renew. 
And offer exiles driven far o'er the salt sea foam 
Another home. 



But toil and pain must wear out many a day, 
And days bear weeks, and weeks bear months 

away, 
Ere, if at all, the weary traveler hear. 
With accents whispered in his wayworn ear, 
A voice he dares to listen to, say, Come 
To thy true home. 

Come home, come home ! And where a home 

hath he. 
Whose ship is driving o'er the driving sea? 
Througli clouds that mutter, and o'er waves 

. that roar, 
Say, shall we find, or shall we not a shore 
That is, as is not ship or ocean foam. 

Indeed our home ? 

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 
FROM "THE TRAVELER." 

BUT where to find that happiest spot 
below. 
Who can direct, when all pretend to 
know ? 
The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone 
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own; 
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas. 
And his long nights of revelry and ease : 
The naked negro, panting at the line, 
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wane, 
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave. 
And thanks his gods for all the good they 

gave. 
Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam. 
His first, best country, ever is at home. 
And yet perhaps, if countries we compare, 
And estimate the blessings which they share. 
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find 
An equal portion dealt to all mankind ; 
As different good, by art or nature given, 
To different nations makes their blessing even. 

OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



ODR CODNTRY AKD ODR HOME. 

^^HERE is a land, of every land the pride; 
(^) Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world 

beside ; 
Where brighter suns dispense screner light. 
And milder moons emparadise the night; 
A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth. 
Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth. 
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores 



9c 



121 



OUR COUNTRY AND OUR HOME, 



.The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting 

shores, 
Views not a realm so beautiful and fair, 
Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air ; 
In every clime, the magnet of his soul, 
Touched by remembrance, trembles to that 

pole ; 
For in this land of Heaven's peculiar grace, 
The heritage of iN'ature's noblest race, 
There is a spot of earth supremely bless'd, 
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest, 
Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside 
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride, 
While in his softened looks benignly blend 
The sire, the son, the husband, father, friend. 
Here woman reigns ; the mother, daughter, 

wife, 
Strew with fresh flowers the narrow way of 

life; 
In the clear heaven of her delightful eye, 
An angel-guard of loves and graces lie ; 
Around her knees domestic duties meet. 
And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet. 
Where shall that land — that Bpot of earth be 

found ? 
Art thou a man ? — a patriot ? — look around ; 
Oh ! thou shalt find, howe"er thy footsteps 

roam, 
That land thy country, and that spot thyh.om.e. 

JAMES MONTGOMERY. 

HOME-A DUET. 

HE. 

DOST thou love wandering ? whither wouldst 
thou go ? 
Dreamest thou, sweet daughter, of a land 
more fair ? 
Dost thou not love these aye-blue streams that 
flow? 
These spicy forests ? and this golden air ? 

SHE. 

Oh, yes ! I love the woods and streams so gay. 
And more than all, O father ! I love thee; 

Yet would I fain be wandering far away, 
WTiere such things never were, nor e'er 
shall be. 

HE. 

Speak, mine own daughter, with the sun- 
bright locks. 
To what pale banished nation wouldst thou 
roam? 



SHE. 

father, let us find our frozen rocks ! 

Let's seek that country of all countries^ 
Home! 

HE. 

See'st thou these orange flowers ! this palm 
that rears 
Its head up tow'rds Heaven's blue and 
cloudless dome ? 

SHE. 

1 dream, I dream,«mine eyes are hid in tears, 
My heart is wandering round our ancient 

home. 

HE. 

^Miy, then, we'll go. Farewell, ye tender skies, 
Who shelter'd us when we were forced to 
roam. 

SHE. 

On, on ! Let's pass the swallow as he flies! 
Farewell, kind land! ISTow, father, now for 
Home ! 

BARRY CORNWALL. 



MY WIFE AND CHILD. 

THE tattoo beats — the lights are gone, 
The camp around in slumber lies ; 
The night with solemn pace moves on, 
The shadows thicken o'er the skies; 
But sleep my weary eyes hath flo^m, 
And sad, uneasy thoughts arise. 

I think of thee, dearest one, 

Whose love my earthly life hath blest — 
Of thee and him — our baby son — 

Who slumbers on thy gentle breast; 
God of the tender, frail, and lone, 

Oh, guard the gentle sleepers' rest. 

And hover, gently hover near. 
To her whose watchful eye is wet — 

To mother-wife — the double dear. 

In whose young heart have freshly met 

Two streams of love so deep and clear — 
And cheer her drooping spirits yet. 

Now, while she kneels before Thy throne. 
Oh, teach her, Kuler of the skies, 

That while by Thy behest alone 

Earth's mightiest powers fall or rise, 

Xo tear is wept to Tliee unknown, 
Xo hair is lost, no sparrow dies. 

^'STONEWALL" JACKSON. 



n% 




FFECTIOX does 
not beget weak- 
ness, nor is it 
effeminate for a 
brother to be ten- 
derly attached to 
his sisters. That 
boy will make the 
noblest, the bravest man. On the battle- 
field, in many terrible battles during our 
late horrible war, I always noticed 
that those boys who had been reared 
under the tenderest home culture always 
made the best soldiers. They were always 
brave, always endured the severe hard- 
ships of camp, the march, or on the 
bloody field most silently, and were most 
dutiful at every call. More, much more, 
they resisted the frightful temptations that 
so often surrounded them, and seldom 
returned to their loved ones stained with 
the sins incident to war. Another point, 
they were always kind and polite to those 
whom they met in the enemy's country. 
Under their protection, woman was always 
safe. How often I have heard one regi- 
ment compared with another, when the 
cause of the difference was not compre- 
hended by those who drew the compari- 
son ! I knew the cause, it was the home 
education. 

We see the same every day in the busv 
life of the city. Call together one hun- 
dred young men in our city, and spend an 
evening with them, and we will tell you 
their home education. "Watch them as 
they approach young ladies, and converse 
with them, and we will show you who 
have been trained under the influence of 
home affection and politeness, and those 
who have not. 



That young man who was accustomed 
to kiss his sweet, innocent, loving sister 
night and morning as they met, shows its- 
influence upon him, and he will never for= 
get it, and when he shall take some one 
to his heart as his wife, she shall reap the 
golden fruit thereof. The young man who 
was in the habit of giving his arm to his 
sister as they walked to and from church, 
will never leave his wife to find her way 
as best she can. The young man who has 
been taught to see that his sister had a 
seat before he sought his, will never mor- 
tify a neglected wife in the presence of 
strangers. And that young man who 
always handed his sister to her chair at 
the table, will never have cause to blush 
as he sees some gentleman extend to his 
wife the courtesy she knows is due from 
him. 

Mothers and daughters, wives and sis- 
ters, remember that, and remember that 
you have the making of the future of this 
great country, and rise at once to your 
high and holy duty. Remember that you 
must make that future, whether you will 
or not. AVe are all what you make us. 
Ah ! throw away your weakening follies 
of fashion, and soul-famine, and rise to 
the level where God intended you should 
be, and make every one of your homes, 
from this day, schools of true politeness 
and tender affection. Take those little 
curly-headed boys, and teach them all you 
would have men to be, and my word for 
it, they will be just such men, and will 
go forth to bless the world, and crown 
you with a glory such as queens and 
empresses never dreamed of. AVicld your 
power now, and you shall reap the fruit 
in your ripe age. h, c. dans. 



123 



WHEN I COME HOME. 



AROUND me Life's hell of fierce ardors 
burns, 
When I come home, when I come home ; 
Over me Heaven with her starry heart yearns, 
• When I come home, when I come home ; 
For the feast of God 's garnisht; — the palace 

of Mght 
At a thousand star-windows is throbbing with 

light. 
London makes mirth ! but I know God hears 
The sobs in the dark and the dropping of tears. 
For I feel that He listens, down Night's great 

dome, 
When I come home, when I come home, 
Home, home ; when I come home, 
Far in the night when I come home. 

I walk under Night's triumphal arch, 

When I come home, when I come- home. 
Exulting with life, like a conqueror's march, 

When I come home, when I come home. 
I pass by the rich-chamber'd mansions that 

shine, 
Overflowing with splendor like goblets with 

wine. 
I have fought, I have vanquish t the dragon of 

Toil, 
And before me my golden Hesperides smile ! 
And oh ! but Love's flowers make rich the 

gloam, 
When I come home, when I come home. 

O the sweet merry mouths upturn'd to be kist. 
When I come home, when I come home ! 

How the younglings yearn from the hungry 
nest, 
When I come home, when I come home ! 

My weary worn heart into sweetness is stirr'd, 

And it dances and sings like a singing bird 

On the branch nighest heaven — a-top of my 
life; 

As I clasp thee, my winsome, wooing wife ! 

And thy pale cheek, with rich tender passion 
doth bloom. 

When I come home, when I come home. 
Home, home, when I come home. 
Far in the night when I come home. 

Clouds furl off" the shining face of my life, 
AVhen I .come home, when I come home; 

And leave heaven bare on thy bosom, sweet 
wife, 
When I come home, when I come home. 



With her smiling energies — faith, warm and 

bright — 
With love glorified and serenely alight — 
With her womanly beauty and queenly calm, 
She steals to my heart with her blessing of 

balm ; 
And oh, but the wine of Love sparkles with 

foam, 
When I come home, when I come home ! 
Home, home, when I come home ! 
Far in the night when I come home. 

GERALD MASSEY. 



CHEERFULNESS OF HOME. 

A MAN'S house should be on the hill- 
top of cheerfulness and serenity, so 
high, that no shadows rest upon 
it, and where the morning comes so 
early, and the evening tarries so late, 
that the day has twice as many golden 
hours as those of other men. He is 
to be pitied whose house is in some val- 
ley of grief between the hills, with the 
longest night and the shortest day. Home 
should be the centre of joy, equatorial and 
tropical. h. w. beecher. 



HOME, SWEET HOME. 

FROM THE OPERA OF "CLARI, THE MAID OP MILAN. 

MID pleasures and palaces though we may 
roam. 
Be it ever so humble there's no place 
like home ! 
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us 

there, 
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met 
with elsewhere. 
Home ! home ! sweet, sweet home ! 
There's no place like home! 

An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain : 
O, give me riiy lowly thatched cottage again ! 
The birds singing gayly that came at my call ; — 
Give me them, — and the peace of m.ind dearer 
than all ! 

Home! home! sweet, sweet home ! 

There's no place like home ! 

JOHN HOWARD PAYNE. 



124 



HOME, SWEET HOME. 



C. C. SOMERVILLE. 



In the spring of 1863 two great armies were encamped 
•n either side of the Rappahannock river, one dressed in 
biue and the other in gray. As twilight fell the bands on 
the Union side began to play, " The Star Spangled Ban- 
ner," and " Rally Round the Flag." The challenge was 
taken up by those on the other side, and they responded 
with the " Bonnie Blue Flag," and " Away Down South 
in Dixie." It was borne upon the soul of a single soldier 
in one of those bands of music to begin a sweeter, more 
tender air, and slowly as he played it all the instruments 
upon the Union side joined in, until finally a great and 
mighty chorus swelled up and down the army— "Home, 
Sweet Home." When they had finished there was no 
challenge yonder, for every band upon that further shore 
had taken up the lovely air, and one chorUs of the two 
great hosts went up to God. 

It was this incident which inspired the following 
poem: 

The sun had dropped iato the distant west, 
The cannons ceased to roar, which tells of rest, 
Rest from the shedding of a nation's blood, 
Rest to lay their comrades 'neath the sod. 

'Twas early spring, and calm and still the night, 
The moon had risen, casting softest light; 
On either side of stream the armies lay, 
Waiting for morn, to then renew the fray. 

So near together a sound was heard by all, 
Each could hear the other's sentry-call, 
The bivouac fires burned brightly on each hill, 
And save the tramp of pickets all was still. 

The Rappahannock silently flows on 
Between the hills so fair to look upon. 
Whose dancing waters, tinged with silver light, 
Vie in their beauty with the starry night. 

But list I from Northern hill there steal along 
The softest strains of music and of song. 
The " Starry Banner," our nation's glorious air, 
Which tells to all of gallant flag " still there." 

Then " Hail Columbia " a thousand voices sing 
With all their soul, which makes the hill-tops ring. 
From fire to fire, from tent to tent then flew 
The welcome words, " Lads, sing the ' Boys in 
Blue.' " 

And well they sang. Each heart was filled with 

joy, 
From first in rank to little drummer-boy; 
Then loud huzzas, and wildest cheers were given, 
Which seemed to cleave the air and reach to 

heaven. 



The lusty cheering reached the Southern ear, — 
Men who courted danger, knew no fear, 
Whilst talking of their scanty evening meal. 
And each did grasp his trusty blade of steel. 

Those very strains of music which of yore 
Did raise the blood are felt by them no more. 



How changed ! What now they scorn and taunt 

and jeer, 
Was once to them as sacred, just as dear ; 

And when the faintest echo seemed to die, 
The last huzza been wafted to the sky. 
The boys in blue had lain them down to rest. 
With gun and bayonet closely hugged to breast, — 

There came from Southern hill with gentle swell 
The air of '' Dixie," which was loved so well 
By every one who wore the coat of gray, 
And still revered and cherished to this day. 

In " Dixie's land " they swore to live and die, 
That was their watchword, that their btittle cry. 
Then rose on high the wild Confederate yell, 
Resounding over every hill and dell ; — 

Cheer after cheer went up that starry night 
From men as brave as ever saw the light. 
Now all is still. Each side has played its pari. 
How simple songs will fire a soldier's heart! 

But hark ! From Rappahannock's stream thera 

floats 
Another air; but, ah ! how sweet the notes — 
Not those which lash men's passions into foam, 
But, richest gems of song, 'twas " Home, Sweet 

Home," 

Played by the band, which reached the very soul, 
And down the veteran's cheeks the tear-drop stole. 
Men who would march to very cannon's mouth 
Wept like children, from both North and South. 

Beneath those well-worn coats of gray and blue 
Were generous, tender hearts, both brave and true. 
The sentry stopped and rested on his gun, 
While back to home his thoughts did swiftly run, 

Thinking of loving wife and children there, 
With no one left to guide them, none to care. 
Stripling lads not strong enough to bear 
The weight of sabre, or the knapsack wear. 

Tried to stop with foolish, boyish pride 
The startling tear ; as well try stop the tide 
Of ceaseless, rolling ocean, just as well, 
As stop those tears which fast and faster fell. 

Then lo! by mutual sympathy there rose 

A shout tremendous, forgetting they were foes, 

A simultaneous shout, which came from every 

voice. 
And seemed to make the very heavens rejoice. 



Sweet music's power ! one chord doth make us wild, 
But change the strain wo weep as little child ; 
Touch yet another, men charge the battery gun, 
And l)y those martial strains — a victory's won; 
It matters not from whence, how far you roam, 
No h(,>art so cold that does not love " sweet 
home." 

125 



THE HOME OF HOSPITALITY. 




»-a> 



§^§19^ PERFECT host is as rare 
a being as a great poet, and 
for much the same reason, 
\ namely, that to be a perfect 
host requires as rare a com- 
bination of qualities as those which are 
needed to produce a great poet. He 
should be like that lord in waiting of 
whom Charles II. said, that he was 
" never in the way, and never out of the 
way." He should never degenerate into 
a showman, for there is nothing of which 
most people are so soon weary as of being 
Bhown things, especially if they are called 
upon to admire them. He, the perfect 
host, should always recollect that he is in 
his own house, and that his guests are not 
in theirs, consequently those local arrange- 
ments which are familiar to him should 
be rendered familiar to them. His aim 
should be to make his house a home for 
his guests, with all the advantage of nov- 
elty. If he entertains many guests, he 
should know enough about them to be 
sure that he has invited those who will 
live amicably together, and will enjoy each 
other's society. He should show no fa- 
voritism, if possible, and if he is a man 
who must indulge in favoritism, it should 
be to those of his guests who are more 
obscure than the others. He should be' 
judiciously despotic as regards all propo- 
sals for pleasure, for there will be many 
that are diverse, and much time will be 
wasted if he does not take upon himself 
the labor and responsibility of decision. 
He should have much regard to the com- 
ings and goings of his guests, so as to pro- 
vide for their adit and exit every conveni- 
ence. ^N'ow I am going to insist on what 
I think to be a very great point. He 
should aim at causing that his guests 
should hereafter become friends, if they 
are not so at present, so that they might, 



in future days, trace back the beginning of 
their friendship to their having met to- 
gether at his house. He, the perfect host, 
must have the art to lead conversation 
without absorbing it himself, so that he 
may develop the best qualities of his guests. 
His expense in entertainment should not 
be devoted to what is luxurious, but to 
what is ennobling and comfortable. The 
first of all things is that he should be an 
affectionate, indeed, a loving host, so that 
every one of his guests should feel that he 
is really welcome. He should press them 
to stay, but should be careful that this 
pressing does not interfere with their con- 
venience, so that they stay merely to oblige 
him, and not to please themselves. In 
considering who should be his guests, he 
should always have a thought as to those 
to whom he would render most service by 
having them as his guests, his poorer 
brethren, his more sickly brethren. Those 
who he feels would gain most advantage 
by being his guests, should have the first 
place in his invitations, and for his con- 
siderateness he will be amply rewarded by 
the benefits he will have conferred. 



SIR ARTHUR HELPS, 



4" 'f 



HOME WORSHIP. 

•E are far from thinking that 
the good old custom of hav- 
ing family prayers is be- 
ing dropped from Christian 
households. It is a custom held in honor 
wherever there is real Christian life, and 
it is the one thing which, more than any 
other, knits together the loose threads of a 
home and unites its various members be- 
fore God. The short religious service in 
which parents, children and friends daily 
join in praise and prayer, is at once an 
acknowledgment of dependence on the 
heavenly Father and a renewal of conse- 



126 



HOME WORSHIP. 



cration to his work in the world. The 
Bible is read, the hymn is sung, the peti- 
tion is offered, and unless all has been done 
as a mere formality and without hearty 
assent, those who have gathered at the 
family altar leave it helped, soothed, 
strengthened, and armored, as they were 
not before they met there. The sick and 
the absent are remembered. The tempted 
and the tried are commended to God, and, 
as the Israelites in the desert were attend- 
ed by the pillar and the cloud, so in life's 
wilderness the family who inquire of the 
Lord are constantly overshadowed by his 
presence and love. 

There are many reasons which are al- 
lowed to interfere with and thrust aside 
the privilege of family prayer in homes 
where father and mother mean to have it 
daily. 

Whatever comes in the way of a plain 
duty ought, however, to be set aside. If 
there be any among our readers who rec- 
ognize the need there is in their house to 
have a daily open worship of God, let 
them begin it at once. They must find 
the time, choose the place, and appoint the 
way. The actual time spent in worship 
may be a few minutes only. A brief serv- 
ice which cannot tire the youngest child, 
if held unvaryingly as the sun, in the morn- 
ing when the day begins, and in the even- 
ing when its active labors close, is far 
more useful and edifying than a long one 
which fatigues attention. 

It is possible to have a daily worship 
which shall be earnest, vivifying, tender 
and reverential, and yet a weariness to 
nobody. Only let the one who conducts 
it mean toward the Father the sweet obe- 
dience of the grateful child, and maintain 
the attitude of one who goes about earthly 
affairs with a soul looking beyond and 
above them to the rest that remaineth in 
heaven. It is not every one who is able 



to pray in the hearing of others with ease. 
The timid tongue falters, and the thoughts 
struggle in vain for utterance. But who 
is there who cannot read a Psalm, or a 
chapter, or a cluster of verses, and, kneel- 
ing, repeat in accents of tenderest trust 
the Lord's prayer ? When we think of 
it, that includes everything. — Christian at 
Work. 

THE HOME CONCERT. 

WELL, Tom, my bov, I must say good- 
bye, 
I've had a wonderful visit here; 
Enjoyed it, too, as well as I could 

Away from all that my heart holds dear. 
Maybe I have been a trifle rough — 

A little awkward, your wife would say — 
And very likely I've missed the hint 
Of your city polish day by day. 

But somehow, Tom, though the same old roo^ 

Sheltered us both when we were boys. 
And the same dear mother-love watched us 
both. 

Sharing our childish griefs and joj's, 
Yet you are almost a stranger now ; 

Your ways and mine are as far apart 
As though we had never thrown an arm 

About each other with loving heart. 

Your city home is a palace, Tom ; 

Your wife and children are fair to see ; 
You couldn't breathe in the little cot, 

The little home, that belongs to me. 
And I am lost in your grand large house, 

And dazed with the wealth on every side, 
And I hardly know my brother, Tom, 

In the midst of so much stately pride. 

Yes, the concert was grand last night, 

The singing splendid ; but, do you know, 
My heart kept longing, the evening through, 

For another concert, so sweet and low, 
Tliat maybe it wouldn't please the ear 

Of one so cultured and grand as you ; 
But to its music — laugh if you will — 

My heart and thoughts must ever be tru«. 

I shut my eyes in the hall last night 

(For the clash of the music wearied me), 

And close to my heart this vision came — 
The same sweet picture I always see: 



127 



THE HOME CONCERT. 



In the vine-clad porch of a cottage home, 
Half in shadow and half in sun, 

A mother chanting her lullaby, 
Rocking to rest her little one. 

And soft and sweet as the music fell 

From the mother's lips, I heard the coo 
Of my baby girl, as with drowsy tongue 

She echoed the song mth " Goo-agoo." 
Together they sang, the mother and babe, 

My wife and child, by the cottage door ; 
Ah ! thai is the concert, brother Tom, 

My ears are aching to hear once more. 

So now good-bye. And I wish you well. 

And many a year of wealth and gain. 
You were born to be rich and gay ; 

I am content to be poor and plain; 
And I go back to my country home 

With a love that absence has strengthened 
too, 
Back to the concert all my own — 

Mother's singing and baby's coo. 



THE HOME CIRCLE, 



'HERE is nothing in the world which 
is so venerable as the character of 
parents ; nothing so intimate and 
endearing as the relation of husband and 
wife ; nothing so tender as that of child- 
ren ; nothing so lovely as those of brothers 
and sisters. The little circle is made one 
by a singular union of the affections. The 
only fountain in the wilderness of life, 
where man drinks of water totally 
unmixed with bitter ingredients, is that 
which gushes for him in the calm and 
shady recess of domestic life. Pleasure 
may heat the heart with artificial excite- 
ment, ambition may delude it with 
golden dreams, war may eradicate its fine 
fibres and diminish its sensitiveness, but 
it is only domestic love that can render it 
truly happy. 

Even as the sunbeam is composed of 
millions of minute rays, the home life 
must be constituted of little tendernesses, 
kind looks, sweet laughter, gentle words, 
loving counsels ; it must not be like the 

1 



torch -blaze of natural excitement which 
is easily quenched, but like the serene, 
chastened light which burns as safely in 
the dry east wind as in the stillest atmos- 
phere. Let each bear the other's burden 
the while — let each cultivate the mutual 
confidence which is a gift capable of 
increase and improvement — and soon it 
will be found that kindliness will spring 
up on every side, displacing constitutional 
unsuitability, want of mutual knowledge, 
even as we have seen sweet violets and 
primroses dispelling the gloom of the 
gray sea-rocks. 



HOME. 

^^^HAT a hallowed name ! How full 
f^v|L^^ of enchantment and how dear to 
'^^ the heart. Home is the magic 
circle within which the weary spirit finds 
refuge ; it is the sacred asylum to which 
the care-worn heart retreats to find rest 
from the toils and inquietudes of life. Ask 
the lone wanderer as he plods his tedious 
way, bent with the weight of age, and 
white with the frost of years, ask him 
what is home ? He will tell you " it is a 
green spot in memory; an oasis in the 
desert ; a centre about which the fondest 
recollections of his grief-oppressed heart 
cling with all the tenacity of youth's first 
love. It was once a glorious, a happy 
reality, but now it rests only as an image 
of the mind." 

Home ! that name touches every fibre 
of the soul, and strikes every chord of 
the human heart with its angelic fingers. 
Nothing but death can break its spelL 
What tender associations are linked with 
home ! What pleasing images and deep 
emotions it awakens! It calls up the 
fondest memories of life and opens in our 
nature the purest, deepest, richest gush of 
concentrated thought and feeling. 



28 



HOME INFLUENCES. 



Cyif HERE is music in the word home. 

J I To the old it brings a bewitching 

\JI/ strain from the harp of memory ; 

T to the yomig it is a reminder of 

all that is near and dear to them. 

Among the many songs we are wont to 

listen to, there is not one more cherished 

than the touching melody of " Home, 

Sweet Home." 

Will you go back with me a few years, 
dear reader, in the history of the past, 
and traverse in imagination the gay streets 
and gilded saloons of Paris, that once 
bright center of the world's follies and 
pleasures ? Passing through its splendid 
thoroughfares is one (an Englishman) 
who has left his home and native land to 
view the splendors and enjoy the pleas- 
ures of a foreign country. He has beheld 
with delight its paintings, its sculpture, 
and the grand yet graceful proportions of 
its buildings, and has yielded to the spell 
of the sweetest muse. Yet, in the midst 
of his keenest happiness, when he was 
rejoicing most over the privileges he pos- 
sessed, temptations assailed him. Sin 
was presented to him in one of its most 
bewitching garbs. He drank wildly and 
deeply of the intoxicating cup, and his 
draught brought madness. Reason was 
overwhelmed, and he rushed out, all his 
scruples overcome, careless of what he 
did or how deeply he became immersed 
in the hitherto unknown sea of guilt. 

The cool night air lifted the damp locks 
from his heated brow, and swept with 
soothing touch over his flushed cheeks. 
Walking on, calmer, but no less deter- 
mined, strains of music from a distance 
met his ear. Following in the direction 
the sound indicated, he at length distin- 
guished the words and air. The song was 
well remembered. It was " Home, Sweet 
Home." Clear and sweet the voice of 
some English singer rose and fell on the 
air, in soft cadences of that beloved 
melody. 



Motionless, the wanderer listened till 
the last note floated away and he could 
hear nothing but the ceaseless murmur of 
a great city. Then he turned slowly, with 
no feeling that his manhood was shamed 
by the tear which fell as a bright evidence 
of the power of song. 

The demon that dwells in the wine had 
fled ; and reason once more asserted her 
right to control. As the soft strains of 
"Sweet Home" had floated to his ear, 
memory brought up before him his own 
" sweet home." He saw his gentle mother, 
and heard her speak, while honest pride 
beamed from her eye, of her son, in whose 
nobleness and honor she could always 
trust; and his heart smote him as* he 
thought how little he deserved such con- 
fidence. He remembered her last words 
of love and counsel, and the tearful fare- 
well of all those dear ones who gladdened 
that far-away home with their presence. 
Well he knew their pride in his integrity, 
and the tide of remorse swept over his 
spirit as he felt what their sorrow would 
be could they have seen him an hour 
before. Subdued and repentant, he 
retraced his steps, and with this vow 
never to taste of the terrible draught that 
could so excite him to madness was min- 
gled a deep sense of thankfulness for his 
escape from further degradation. The 
influence of home had protected him, 
though the sea rolled between. 

None can tell how often the commission 
of crime is prevented by such memories. 
If, then, the spell of home is so powerful, 
how important it is to make it pleasant 
and lovable! Many a time a cheerful 
home and smiling face does more to make 
good men and women, than all tlie learn- 
ing and eloquence that can be used. It 
has been said that the sweetest words in 
our language are " Mother, Home and 
Heaven;" and one might almost say the 
word home included them all ; for who 
can think of home without remembering 



129 



HOME INFLUENCES. 



the gentle mother who sanctified it by her 
presence ? And is not home the dearest 
name for heaven ? We think of that bet- 
ter land as a home where brightness will 
never end in night. Oh, then, may our 
homes on earth be the centers of all our 
joys ; may they be as green spots in the 
desert, to which we can retire when weary 
of the cares and perplexities of life, and 
drink the clear waters of a love which we 
know to be sincere and always unfailing. 

SATURDAY EVENING POST. 



HOME INSTRUCTION. 

f^ BOVE all things, teach children 

l\\ wb at their life is. It is not breath- 
^'1 ^ ing, moving, playing, sleeping, 
t simply. Life is a battle. All 

thoughtful people see it so. A 
battle between good and evil, from child- 
hood. Good influences, drawing us up 
toward the divine ; bad influences, draw- 
ing us down to the brute. Midway we 
stand, between the divine and the brute. 
How to cultivate the good side of the 
nature is the greatest lesson of life to 
teach. Teach children that they lead 
these two lives': the life without, and the 
life within ; and that the inside must be 
pure in the sight of God, as well as the 
outside in the sight of men. 

There are five means of learning. These 
are : 

Observation, reading, conversation, mem- 
ory, reflection. 

Educators sometimes, in their anxiety 
to secure a wide range of studies, don't 
sufficiently impress upon their scholars 
the value of memory. Now, our memory 
is one of the most wonderful gifts God 
has bestowed upon us ; and one of the 
most mysterious. Take a tumbler and 
pour water into it; by-and-by you can 
pour no more ; it is full. It is not so with 
the mind. You cannot fill it full of 
knowledge in a whole life-time. Pour in 
all you please, and it still thirsts for more. 



Remember this : 

Knowledge is not what you learn, but 
what you remember. 

It is not what you eat, but what you 
digest, that makes you grow. 

It is not the money you handle, but 
that you keep, that makes you rich. 

It is not what you study, but what you 
remember and reflect upon, that makes 
you learned. 

One more suggestion : 

Above all things else, strive to fit the 
children in your charge, to be useful men 
and women ; men and women you may 
be proud of in after-life. While they are 
young, teach them that far above physi- 
cal courage - which will lead them to face 
the cannon's mouth — above wealth — 
which would give them farms and houses, 
and bank stocks and gold — is moral cour- 
age. That courage by which they will 
stand fearlessly, frankly, firmly, for the 
right. Every man or woman who dares 
to stand for the right when evil has its 
legions, is the true moral victor in this 
life, and in the land beyond the stars. 

HON. SCHUYLER COLFAX. 



THE MOTHER WANTS HER BOY. 

THERE'S a homestead waiting for you, 
my boy, 
In a quaint old-fashioned town ; 
The gray moss clings to the garden 
wall, 
And the dwelling is low and brown ; 
But a vacant chair by the fireside stands, 

And never a grace is said ; 
But a mother prays that her absent son 
Soon may be homeward led. 
For the mother wants her boy. 

She trains the vines and tends the floweri, 

For she says, " My boy will come; 
And I want the quiet, humble place 

To be just the dear old home 
That it seemed when he, a gentle lad, 

Used to pluck the orchard's gold. 
And gather of roses and lilies tall. 

Far more than his hands could hold. 
And still I want my boy." 



130 



THE MOTHER WANTS HER BOY. 



How well she knows the very place, 

When you played at bat and ball : 
And the violet cap you wore to school, 

Still hangs on its hook in the hall; 
And when the twilight hour draws near 

She steals adown the lane 
To cosset the lambs you used to pet, 

And dream you were home again; 
For the mother wants her boy. 

She is growing old, and her eyes are dim 

With Avatching day by day, 
For the children nurtured at her breast 

Have slipt from her arms away ; 
Alone and lonely, she names the hours 

As the dear ones come and go : 
Their coming she calls " The time of flowers ! " 

Their going, " The hours of snow ! " 
And ever she wants her boy. 

Walk on, toil on ; give strength and mind 

To the task in your chosen place; 
But never forget the dear old home, 

And the mother's loving face ! 
You may count your blessings score on score, 

You may heap your golden grain, 
But remember when her grave is made, 

Your coming will be in vain, 
And now she wants her boy. 



THE ISLAND OF HOME. 

^1^ DWELL on a beautiful island, 
W^ Afloat on the storm-shaken sea, 

And the wild waves dashing around it 
Can never bring terror to me. 

And the island is free from invaders 
As it lists to the sea's restless moan. 

For it has only room enough in it 
For one other heart and my own. 

I found it one day when the twilight 
Was shrouding the sea with its gloom, 

And I gave it the name that I loved best — 
"The Beautiful Island of Home." 

Through its flowers I stroll at the noondaj'', 
And a hand I hold close to my heart ; 

Through its shadows I steal in the love-light, 
And bid all my sorrows depart. 

And oft on its dim western shore 
We wander and gaze o'er the sea, 



To the Beautiful Home that's eternal, 
Prepared for my darling and me. 

And when the pale Boatman shall beckon, 
And with him we ride through the foam, 

We'll reach at the end of our journey 
A lovelier Island of Home. 

REV. IRA J . ]'. A I L E Y 




HOME FRIENDS. 

OME and home friends! 
How dear they are to 
us all ! AVell might we 
love to linger on the 
picture of home 
friends ! When all 
others prove false, 
home friends, removed 
from every bias but 
love, are the steadfast 
and sure stays of our 
peace of soul, — are best and dearest when 
the hour is darkest and the danger of evil 
the greatest. But if one have none to care 
for him at home, — if there be neglect, or 
love of absence, or coldness, in our home 
and on our hearth, then, e*^en if we pros- 
per without, it is dark indeed, within ! It 
is not seldom that we can trace alienation 
and dissipation to this source. If no wife 
or sister care for him who returns from 
his toil, well may he despair of life's best 
blessings. Home is nothing but a name 
without home friends. 



THE HAPPY HOME. 

HAPPY home ! 0, bright and cheer- 
ful hearth ! 
Look round with me, my lover, friend, 
and wife. 
On these fair faces we have lit w:"th life, 
And in the perfect blessing of their birth, 
Help me to live our thanks for so much 
heaven on earth. 

MARTIN F. rUPPER. 



131 



COURTESY AT HOME. 




OURTESY is the perfume of 
christian grace. Its lustre 
should be an expression of the 
best emotions of the soul. The 
word is derived from the 
French, and is closely allied 
therefore, in origin, ^Yith ^^ cour- 
tier," which has an equivocal meaning. A 
courtier is supposed to possess elegant 
manners, cultivated, however, and used 
mainly for selfish endso Politeness, which 
is the synonym of courtesy, is of nobler 
birth. It comes from a Greek term sig- 
nifying citizenship. As the divine king- 
dom is distinct in its laws, spirit, and pur- 
pose, from the kingdoms of this earth, so 
too are its members held together by a 
supernatural life. They compose one 
body, ruled by one Supreme Head. Chris- 
tian politeness is therefore the product of 
regeneration. Its roots are in the heart. 
They are watered from above. All, then, 
who are subjects of Divine grace, should 
be gracious, kind, considerate, courteous, 
and polite in their deportment, and show 
forth the savor^f the precious anointing 
they have received. 

How much a sincere and hearty polite- 
ness may do for others is readily tested 
and measured by all who have learned to 
appreciate it for themselves. While it is 
comparatively easy to be courteous toward 
strangers, or toward people of distinction, 
whom one meets in society or on public 
occasions, still it should be remembered 
that it is at home, in the family, and 
among kindred, that an every-day polite- 
ness of manners is really most to be prized. 
There it confers substantial benefits and 
brings the sweetest returns. The little 
attentions which members of the same 
household may show towards one auother 
day by day belong, in foct, to what is 
styled " good breeding " There cannot be 



any ingrained gentility which does not 
exhibit itself first at home. There, of all 
places in the world, it will be able to de- 
monstrate how much genuine politeness 
there is in the heart. A well-ordered 
family cannot afford to dispense with the 
observance of the good rules of mutual 
intercourse which are enforced in good 
society. A churlish, sour, morose deport- 
ment at home is simply cruel, for it cuts 
into the tenderest sensibilities and hurts 
love just where love is strongest and most 
loyal. Parents and children, brothers and 
sisters, husbands and wives, never lose 
anything by mutual politeness; on the 
contrary, by maintaining not only its 
forms, but by the inward cultivation of 
its spirit, they become contributors to that 
domestic felicity which is, in itself, a fore- 
taste of heaven. — Christian Wt-ehly, 



THE HOUSEHOLD WOMAN. 

GRACEFUL may seem the fairy form, 
With youthj and health, and 
beauty warm, 
Gliding along the airy dance, 
Imparting joy at every glance. 

And lovely, too, when o'er the strings 
Her hand of music woman flings. 
While dewy eyes are upward thrown, 
As if fi'om heaven to claim the tone. 

And fair is she when mental flowers 
Engage her soul's devoted powers, 
And wreaths, unfading wreaths of mind. 
Around her temples are entwined. 

But never, in her varied sphere. 
Is woman to the heart more dear 
Than when her homely task she plies, 
With cheerful duty in her eyes ; 
And, every lowly path well trod, 
Looks meekly upward to her God. 



CAROLINE OILMAN. 



132 



FARMER JOHN. 



HOME from his journey Farmer John 
Arrived this morning safe and sound. 
His bhick coat off, and his old clothes on, 
"Now I'm myself," says Farmer John; 
And he thinks, "I'll look around." 
Up leaps the dog : " Get down, you pup ; 
Are you so glad you would eat me up ? " 
The old cow lows at the gate to greet him ; 
The horses prick up their ears to meet him ; 
"Well, well, old Bay! 
Ha, ha, old Gray! 
Do you get good feed when I am away?" 

"You haven't a rib ! " says Farmer John ; 

"The cattle are looking round and sleek; 
The colt is going to be a roan. 
And a beauty, too ; how he has grown ! 

We'll wean the calf next week," 
Says Farmer John. " When I've been off, 
To call you again about the trough. 
And watch you, and pet you, while you drink, 
Is a greater comfort than you can think ! " 

And he pats old Bay, 

And he slaps old Gray :^- 
" Ah, this is the comfort of going away ! " 

"For, after all," said Farmer John, 

"The best of the journey is getting home! 
I've seen great sights, — but would I give 
This spot, and the peaceftil life I live, 

For all their Paris and Rome ? 
These hills for the city's stifled air. 
And big hotels, all bustle and glare ; 
Land all houses, and road all stones, 
That deafen your ears and batter your bones ? 
Would you, old Bay ? 
Would you, old Gray ? 
That's what one gets by going away ! " 

"There money is king," says Farmer John; 
" And fashion is queen ; and it's mighty 
queer 
To see how, sometimes, while the man 
Is raking and scraping all he can, 

The wife spends, every year, 
Enough, you would think, for a score of wives, 
To keep them in luxury all their lives. 
The town is a perfect Babylon 
To a quiet chap," says Farmer John. 
"You see, old Bay, 
You see, old Gray, — 
J'm wiser than when I went awav." 



And clutched in a life of waste and hurry, 
In nights of pleasure and days of worry ; 

And wealth isn't all in gold. 
Mortgage and stocks and ten per cent. — 
But in simple ways, and sweet content, 
Few wants, pure hopes, and noble ends. 
Some lands to till, and a few good friends, 

Like 3'ou, old Bay, 

And you, old Gray ! 
That's what I've learned by going away." 

And a happy man is Farmer John, — • 

Oh, a rich and happy man is he ! 
He sees the peas and pumpkins growing, 
The corn in tassel, the buckwheat blowing, 

And fruit on vine and tree ; 
The large, kind oxen look their thanks 
As he rubs their foreheads and strokes their 

flanks ; 
The doves light round him, and strut and coo; 
Says Farmer John, "I'll take you too, — 
And you, old Bay, 
And you, old Gray ! 
Next time I travel so far away ! " 

J. T. TROWBRIDGE. 



RETURNING HOME. 




t i 



I've found out this," says Farmer John,- 
"That happiness is not bought and sold. 



E sometimes meet with men who 
seem to think that any indulgence 
in an affectionate feelino- is weak- 
ness. They return from a journey, greet 
their families with a distant dignity, and 
move among their children with the cold 
and lofty splendor of an iceberg sur- 
rounded by its broken fragments. 

There is hardly a more unnatural sight 
than one of those families without a heart. 
A father had better extinguish a boy's 
eyes than take away his heart. Whc 
that has experienced the joys of friend- 
ship, and values sympathy and affection, 
would not rather lose all that is beautiful 
in Nature's scenery than be robbed of the 
hidden treasure of his heart? Cherish, 
then, your heart's best affection. Indulge 
iu the warm and gushing emotions of 
filial and fraternal love. 

MRS. D. M. MULOCH CRAIK. 



133 



SINGING IN THE HOME. 




lULTIVATE singing in 
your family. Begin 
when the child is not 
yet three years old. 
The songs and hymns 
your childhood sang, 
bring them all back 
to your memory, and 
teach them to your 
little ones ; mix them 
all too-ether to meet 
the varying moods as 
in after life they 
come over us so mysteriously at times. 
Many a time, in the very whirl of busi- 
ness, in the sunshine and gayety of 
the avenue, amid the splendor of the drive 
in the park, some little thing wakes up 
the memories of early youth — the old 
mill, the cool spring, the shady tree by 
the little school-house — and the next 
instant we almost see again the ruddy 
cheeks, the smiling faces, and the merry 
eyes of schoolmates, some of whom are 
gray-headed now, w^hile most have passed 
from amid earth's weary noises. And, 
anon, ^^the song my mother sang'' springs 
unbidden to the lips, and soothes and 
sweetens aU these memories. At other 
times, amM the crushing mishnps of bus- 
iness, a merry ditty of the olden time 
breaks in upon the ugly train of thought, 
and throws the mind in another channel ; 
light breaks from behind the cloud in the 
sky, and new courage is given us. The 
honest mau goes gladly to his work ; and 
when, the day's labor done, his tools are 
laid aside and he is on his way home, 
where wife and child and the tidy table 
and cheery fireside await him, how can he 
but have music in his heart to break forth 
so often into the merry wdiistle or the 
jocund song? Moody silence, not the 



merry song, weighs down the dishonest 
tradesman, the perfidious clerk, the 
unfaithful servant, the perjured partner. 

Although we may have passed our 
three-score years, the songs of our youth 
are often resurrected, and we love to hum 
them over again, and often do so, in the lone 
hours of the night, when there are none 
to hear save ourself and the drowsy ^gray 
spiders on the wall/ and while doing so, 
we feel less inclined toward 'treason, 
stratagem and spoils,' than at any other 
hour within the twenty-four. We fondly 
look back to the days when we were ag 
musical as a hand organ — and perhaps as 
^ cracked ' as many of them, too — those 
days when we so lightly touched the keys 
to the measure of the songs we sang. 
AVe often regret time, circumstance and 
advancing years have so effectually quieted 
our vocal muse ; still we revert to the bal- 
lads of yore, and mentally exclaim, 

" 'Sing me the songs that to me were so dear, 
Long, long ago ; long, long ago.' " 



RELIGION IN THE HOME. 

BEGIN, my friends, with your child- 
ren. Sj^eak cheerfully, but rever- 
ently and solemnly, to them of the 
righteousness of God. Tell them 
He is their father, and tell them He is their 
judge. Show them His face of compas- 
sion ; show them His throne of retribu- 
tion. Teach them that He loves the good ; 
teach them that He hates lying, and lust, 
and all iniquity, and that for His goodness' 
sake. He will sweep those who do not hate 
them finally into tribulation. Take care, 
yourselves, to touch not the unclean thing, 
so that your counsel to your sons and 
daughters be not a mockery. Shake off 
the first dishonest penny from your 
fingers, as the apostle shook oflT the ven- 



IH 



RELIGION IN THE HOME, 



omoiis viper into the fire. Stand in awe 
at 3'our conscience ; stand in awe of tlie 
King of kings. Expect and welcome, 
from the ministry of Christ, searching mes- 
sage. Pray for prophets who will rebuke 
you, as their ancient predecessors did 
Israel, for robbing man by any fraud, for 
robbing God by keeping back the offerings 
at His altar which he requires at your 
hands. And when we, your ministers, 
are weak, when our lips stammer, or our 
courage falters, or our poor lives seem to 
empty our words of power, turn to old 
Isaiah, and listen to the burden of his 
advent vision : 

" Hear, 0, heaven, and give ear, earth, 
for the Lord hath spoken. I have nour- 
ished and brought up children, and they 
have rebelled against me. Wash you ; 
make you clean. Cease to do evil ; learn 
to do well. Seek judgment; relieve the 
oppressed ; right the fatherless ; plead for 
the widow. Zion shall be redeemed with 
judgment, and her converts with right- 
eousness. Say ye to the righteous, it shall 
be well with them, for the reward of his 
hand shall be given him. The mouth of 
the Lord hath spoken it." 

BISHOP F. D. HUNTINGDON. 



THE CHRISTIAN AT HOME. 

CHRISTIANITY begins in the home. 
If not there, it is nowhere. We may 
attend meetings, and sing hymns, 
and join devoutly in prayer ; we may 
give money to the poor, and send mis- 
sionaries and Bibles to the heathen; we 
may organize societies of every descrip- 
tion for doing good ; we may get up church 
fairs, and tea-parties and tableaux and 
picnics ; we may, in short, devote all our 
time and all our means to doing good, 
and yet not be the true and earnest Christ- 
ians we ought to be, after all. 

If they cannot say of us in the family 
at home : " He— or she— is a Christian, 
we know it, we feel it," if home is not a 



better and happier place for our living in it, 
if there is not an influence going out from 
us, day by day, silently drawing those 
about us in the right direction, then it is 
time for us to stop where we are, and 
begin to examine into our title to the 
name of Christian. 

Christianity. Christ- likeness. Is that 
ours ? Are we possessed of that ? Are we 
patient, kind, long-suffering, forbearing, 
seeking with all our hearts to do good, 
dreading with all our hearts to do e\dl? 

For if we are Christ's we shall be like 
Him ; and the first fruits, and the best 
fruits, of our daily living, w^ill be in the 
better and happier lives of those who are 
about us day by day. 



CONVERSATION IN THE HOME. 

AMONG home amusements the best 
is the good old habit of conver- 
sation, the talking over the events 
of the day, in bright and quick 
play of wit and fancy, the story which 
brings the laugh, and the speaking the 
good and kind and true things, w^hich all 
have in their hearts. It is not so much 
by dwelling upon what members of the 
family have in common, as bringing each 
to the other something interesting and 
amusing, that home life is to be made 
cheerful and joyous. Each one must do 
his part to make conversation genial and 
happy. We are too ready to converse 
wnth newspapers and books, to seek some 
companion at the store, hotel, or club-room, 
and to forget that home is anything more 
than a place to sleep and eat in. The re- 
vival of conversation, the entertainment 
of one another, as a roomful of people 
will entertain themselves, is one secret of 
a happy home. Wherever it is wanting, 
disease has struck into the root of the tree; 
there is a want which is felt with increas- 
ing force as time goes on. Conversation, 



135 



CONVERSATION IN THE HOME, 



in many cases, is just what prevents many 
people from relapsing into utter selfishness 
at their firesides. This conversation should 
not simply occupy husband and wife, and 
other older members of the family, but 
extend itself to the children. Parents 
should be careful to talk with them, to 
enter into their life, to share their trifles, 
to assist in their studies, to meet them in 
the thoughts and feelings of their child- 
hood. It is a great step in education, 
when around the evening lamp are gath- 
ered the different members of a family, 
sharing their occupation with one another 
— the older assisting the younger, each one 
contributing to the entertainment of the 
other, and all feeling that the evening has 
passed only too rapidly away. This is 
the truest and best amusement. It is the 
healthy education of great and noble char- 
acters. There is the freedom, the breadth, 
the joyousness of natural life. The time 
Bpent thus by parents, in the higher enter- 
tainment of their children, bears a harvest 
of eternal blessings, and these long even- 
ings furnish just the time. — Churchman, 




ART IN THE HOME. 

^T has been said that there is sure to 
be contentment in a home, in the 
windows of which can be seen 
birds or flowers, and it may also 
be added that there will be the 
same conditions wherever there 
are pictures on the walls. It is, of course, 
not every one who is a judge of art, but 
even a contemplation of art will educate, 
and it is safe to say that a man cannot 
have a painting in his room and see it day 
after day without sooner or later beginning 
to be able to tell its merits or defects, and 
thus being better fitted to judge of others 
in the future. The engravings and chro- 
mos seen in the homes of the poor may, 
if measured by the critical rules of art, be 
wretched daubs, but they at least show a 



longing and an aspiration after beauty, 
while their presence helps to produce a 
repose of mind, and brings nothing with 
it but good. The lo^dng manner in which 
children linger over pictures tells how 
deeply this feeling is implanted in the 
heart, and long before they can read, 
their dawning powers are gradually being 
strengthened by these silent educators. 

Nor is the influence which flowers have, 
any less than that of paintings. At all 
seasons of the year they are gladly wel- 
comed. They are emblematic of both, 
the joys and sorrows of life, and religion 
has associated them with the highest spir- 
itual verities. Faded although they some- 
times may be, they have the power to 
wake the chords of memory and make us 
children again. At the sick bed and the 
marriage feast, on the altar and the cathe- 
dral walls, they have a meaning, and the 
humblest home looks brighter where they 
bloom. A few years ago, at horticultural 
societies in England, prizes were off'ered to 
villagers for the best efi'orts in cottage gar- 
dening, and the result was that a great 
change came over the home-life of the 
people. Instead of gardens filled with 
rank grass and weeds, there could be seen 
flaming hollyhocks, blood-red roses and 
purple geraniums, and a spirit of friendly 
rivalry and emulation was created, lead- 
ing to improvements in households, and 
aiding habits of cleanliness and industry. 
Let any one walk through our markets on 
these bright spring mornings and watch 
how tenderly some poor seamstress will 
linger over a tiny flower and bear it away 
proudly to cheer the loneliness of her 
scantily furnished room, and he will admit 
that if such a little thing can bring pleas- 
ure or satisfaction, every eff^ort made to 
improve the taste of the masses and lead 
them to make home pleasant is to bo 
commended as weakening the influence 
of evil and difi^using a power which will 
prove a potent factor for good. — Baltimore 
American, 



136 



HOME OF CHILDHOOD. 




SK the little child what is home? 
You will find that to him it is the 
world — he knows no other. The 
father's love, the mother's smile, 
the sister's embrace, the brother's 
(welcome, throw about his home a heaven- 
ly halo, and make it as attractive to him 
as the home of the angels. Home is the 
spot where the child pours out all its com- 
plaints, and it is the grave of all its sor- 
rows. Childhood has its sorrows and its 
grievances, but home is the place where 
these are soothed and banished by the 
sweet lullaby of a fond mother's voice. 

There childhood nestles like a bird 
which has built its abode among roses; 
there the cares and the coldness of earth 
are, as long as possible, averted. Flowers 
there bloom, or fruits invite on every side, 
and there paradise would indeed be re- 
stored, could mortal power ward off the 
consequences of sin. This new garden of 
the Lord would then abound in beauty 
unsullied, and trees of the Lord's plant- 
ing, bearing fruit to his glory, would be 
found in plenty there — it would be reality, 
and not mere poetry, to speak of 

" My own dear quiet home, 
The Eden of my heart." 

Home of my childhood ! What words 
fall upon the ear with so much of music 
in their cadence as those which recall the 
scenes of innocent and happy childhood, 
now numbered with the memories of the 
past! How fond recollection delights to 
dwell upon the events which marked our 
early pathway, when the unbroken home- 
circle presented a scene of loveliness vainly 
sought but in the bosom of a happy fam- 
ily ! Intervening years have not dimmed 
the vivid coloring with which memory has 
adorned those joyous hours of youthful 
innocence. We are again borne on the 
wings of imagination to the place made 
sacred by tlie remembrance of a fatlier's 
care, a mother's love, and the cherished 
associations of brothers and sisters. 



Home ! how often we hear persons speak 
of the home of their childhood. Their 
minds seem to delight in dwelling upon 
the recollections of joyous days spent 
beneath the parental roof, when their 
young and happy hearts were as light and 
free as the birds who made the woods re- 
sound with the melody of their cheerful 
voices. What a blessing it is, when weary 
with care and burdened with sorrow, to 
have a home to which we can go and 
there, in the midst of friends we love, for- 
get our troubles and dwell in peace and 
quietness. 

KIND WORDS AT HOME. 

^PEAK kindly in the morning ; itlight- 
X^ ens the cares of the day, and makes 
the household and all other affairs 
move along more smoothly. 

Speak kindly at night, for it may be 
that before the dawn some loved one may 
finish his or her space of life, and it will 
be too late to ask forgiveness. 

Speak kindly at all times ; it encour- 
ages the downcast, cheers the sorrowing, 
and very likely awakens the erring to 
earnest resolves to do better, with strength 
to keep them. 

Kind words are balm to the soul. They 
oil up the entire machinery of life, and 
keep it in good running order. 



10c 



THE GRAND IDEA OF HOME. 

THE grand idea of home is a quiet, 
secluded spot, where loving hearts 
dwell, set apart and dedicated to 
improvement — to intellectual and 
moral improvement. It is not a formal 
school of staid solemnity and rigid disci- 
pline, where virtue is made a task and 
progress a sharp necessity, but a free and 
easy exercise of all our spiritual limbs, in 
which obedience is a pleasure, discipline a 



137 



THE GRAND IDEA OF HOME, 



joy, improvement a self-wrought delight. 
All the duties and labors of home, when 
rightly understood, are so many means of 
improvement. Even the trials of home 
are so many rounds in the ladder of spir- 
itual progress, if we but make them so. 
It is not merely by speaking to children 
about spiritual things that you win them 
over. If that be all you do, it will 
accomplish nothing, less than nothing. It 
is the sentiments which they hear at home, 
it is the maxims which rule your daily 
conduct — the likings and dislikings which 
you express — the whole regulations of the 
household, in dress, and food, and furni- 
ture — the recreations you indulge — the 
company you keep — the style of your 
reading — the whole complexion of daily 
life — this creates the element in which 
your children are either growing in grace, 
and preparing for an eternity of glory — 
or they are learning to live without God, 
and to die without hope. 



HOME AND ITS QUEEN. 

THERE is probably not an unper- 
verted man or woman living, who 
does not feel that the sweetest con- 
solations and best rewards of life 
are found in the loves and delights of 
home. There are very few who do not 
feel themselves indebted to the influences 
that clustered around their cradles for what- 
ever good there may be in their characters 
and condition. Home, based upon Chris- 
tian marriage, is so evident an institution 
of God, that a man must become profane 
before he can deny it. Wherever it is pure 
and true to the Christian idea, there lives 
an institution conservative of all the no- 
bler instincts of society. 

Of this realm woman is the queen. It 
takes the cue and hue from her. If she 
is in the best fcense womanly — if she is 

1 



true and tender, loving and heroic, patient 
and self-devoted — she consciously and un- 
consciously organizes and puts in opera- 
tion a set of influences that do more to 
mould the destiny of the nation than any 
man, uncrowned by power of eloquence, 
can possibly effect. The men of the nation 
are what mothers make them, as a rule; 
and the voice that those men speak in the 
expression of power, is the voice of the 
women who bore and bred them. There 
can be no substitute for this. There is no 
other possible way in which the women of 
the nation can organize their influence and 
power that will tell so beneficially upon 
society and the state. — Scribner^s Monthly. 



HOME-A PLACE OF REST. 



Y 



ES, iiO'Me is a jplace of red — we feel 
it so when we seek and enter it 
after the busy cares and trials of 
the day are over. We may find 
joy elsewhere, but it is not the joy — the 
satisfaction of home. Of the former, the 
heart may soon tire ; of the latter, never. 
In the former there is much of cold for- 
malitv; much heartlessness under the garb 
of friendship, but in the latter it is all 
heart — all friendship of the purest, truest 
character. 

The road along which the business man 
travels in pursuit of competence or wealth, 
is not a macadamized one, nor does it ordi- 
narily lead through pleasant scenes and 
by well-springs of delight. On the con- 
trary, it is a rough and rugged path, beset 
with " Wait-a-bit'^ thorns and full of pit- 
falls, which can only be avoided by the 
watchlul care of circumspection. After 
every day's journey over this worse than 
rough turnpike, the wayfarer needs some- 
thing more than rest; he requi-es solace, 
and he deserves it. He is v^eary of the 
dull prose of life, and athirst for the poetry. 
38 



HOME— A PLACE OF REST, 



oiappy is the business man ^ho can 
find that solace and that poetry at home. 
"Warm greetings from loving hearts, fond 
glances from bright eyes, the welcome 
shouts of children, the many thousand 
little arrangements for cur comfort and 
enjoyment that silently tell of thoughtful 
and expectant love, the gentle ministra- 
tions that disencumber us into an old and 
easy seat before we are aware of it ; these 
and like tokens of affection and sympathy 
constitute the poetry which reconciles us 
to the prose of life. Think of this, ye 
wives and daughters of business men ! 
Think of the toils, the anxieties, the mor- 
tification, and wear that fathers undergo 
to secure for you comfortable homes, and 
compensate them for their trials by mak- 
ing them happy by their ov.n firesides. 



COME HOME. 

LIXGER not long. Home is not home 
without thee : 
Its dearest tokens do but make me 
mourn, 
0, let its memor}-, like a chain about thee, 
Gently compel and hasten thy return I 

Linger not long. Tlioiigh crowds should woo 
thy staying. 
Bethink thee, can the mirth of thy friends, 
though dear. 
Compensate for the grief thy long delaying 
Costs the fond heart that sighs to have thee 
here? 

Linger not long. How shall I watch thy 
coming, 
As evening shadows stretch o'er moor and 
dell 
\^Tien the wild bee hath ceased her busy 
humming, 
And silence hangs on all things like a spell ! 

How shall I watch for thee, when fears grow 
strunger. 

As night grows dark and darker on the hill I 
H'.w shall I weep, when I can watch no longer! 

Ah I art thou absent, art thou absent still ? 



Yet I shall grieve not, though the eye that 
seeth me 
Gazeth through tears that make its splendor 
dull; 
For oh ! I sometimes fear when thou art with 
me. 
My cup of happiness is all too full. 

Haste, haste thee home unto thy mountain 
dwelling, 
Ha.ste. as a bird unto its peaceful nest ! 
Haste, as a skifl', through tempests wide and 
swelling, 
Flies to its haven of securest rest ! 




A CHEERFUL HOME. 

SIXGLE bitter word may dis- 
% ^ * quiet an entire family for a whole 
day. One surly glance casts a 
gloom over the household, while a smile, 
like a gleam of sunshine, may light up the 
darkest and weariest hours. Like unex- 
pected flowers, which sj^ring up along our 
path, full of freshness, fragrance and 
beaut}', do kind words and gentle acts and 
sweet dispositions, make glad the home 
where peace and blessing dwell. Xo mat- 
ter how humble the ab<xle, if it be thus 
garnished with grace and sweetened with 
kindness and smiles, the heart will turn 
lo^^ngly toward it from all the tumult of 
the world, will be the dearest spot beneath 
the circuit of the sun. 

And the influences of home perpetuate 
themselves. The gentle grace of the 
mother lives in the daughter long after 
her head is pillowed in the dust of death 3 
and the fatherly kindness finds its echo in 
the nobility and courtesy of sons, who 
come to wear his mantle and to fill his 
place ; while on the other hand, from an 
unhappy, misgoverned and disordered 
home, go forth j>ersons who shall make 
other homes miserable, and perpetuate the 
sourness and sadness, the contentions and. 
strifes and railings which have made their 
own earlv lives so wretched and distorted 



139 



A CHEERFUL HOME, 




Toward the cheerful home, the children 
gather " as clouds and as doves to their 
windows/^ while from the home which is 
the abode of discontent and strife and 
trouble, they fly forth as vultures to rend 
their prey. 

The class of men who disturb and dis- 
tress the world, are not those borne and 
nurtured amid the hallowed influences of 
Christian homes ; but rather those whose 
early life has been a scene of trouble and 
vexation, — who have started wrong in the 
pilgrimage, and whose course is one of 
disaster to themselves, and trouble to those 
around them. — Friends^ Intelligencer, 

THE FARMER'S HOME. 

SeBSTER defines home as a 
"dwelling-place," but it 
admits of a broader mean- 
ing. There are brilliant and 
elegant homes. Some are wise, thrifty 
and careful, and others are warm and 
genial, by whose glowing hearths any one, 
at any time, may find enough and to 
spare. There are bright homes and gloomy 
homes. There are homes that hurry and 
bustle through years of incessant labor, 
until one and another of the inmates fall, 
like the falling leaves, and the homes turn 
to dust. We do not say the dair^^maid's 
home compares with this last view. Sci- 
ence has done much to remove the drudg- 
ery in our homesj introducing ease and 
comfort. An ideal home must first have a 
government, but love must be the dictator. 
All the members should unite to make 
home happy. We should have light in 
our homes, heaven's own pure, transparent 
light. It matters not whether home is 
clothed in blue and purple, if it is only 
brimful of love, smiles, and gladness. 

Our boaids should be spread with every- 
thing good and enjoyable. We should 
have birds, flowers, pets, everything sug- 
gestive of sociability. Flowers are as 



indispensable to the perfections of a home 
as to the perfections of a plant. Do not 
give them all the sunniest windows and 
pleasantest corners, crowding out the 
children. If you cannot have a large 
conservatory, have a small one. Give 
your children pets, so that by the care and 
attention bestowed upon them they may 
learn the habits of animals. 

Of the ornamentation about a house, 
although a broad lake lends a charm to 
the scenery it cannot compare with the 
babbling brook. As the little streamlet 
goes tumbling over the rocks and along 
the shallow, pebbly bed, it may be a mar- 
velous teacher to the children, giving them 
lessons of enterprise and perseverance. 

In our homes we must have industry 
and sympathy. In choosing amusements 
for the children, the latter element must 
be brought in. To fully understand the 
little ones, you must sympathize with 
them. When a child asks questions don't 
meet it with, " Oh, don't bother me." Tell 
it all it wants to know. Never let your 
angry passions rise, no matter how much 
you may be tried. For full and intelligent 
happiness in the home circle, a library of 
the best works is necessary. Do not in- 
troduce the milk and water fiction of the 
present day, but books of character. Our 
homes should have their Sabbaths and 
their family altars. Around these observ- 
ances cling many of the softest and most 
sacred memories of our lives. 

WILLIAM H, YEOMANS. 



MUSIC IN THE HOME. 

MUSIC is an accomplishment usu- 
ally valuable as a home enjoy- 
ment, as rallying round the 
piano the various members of a family, 
and harmonizing their hearts, as well as 
their voices, particularly in devotional 
strains. We know no more agreeable and 
interesting spectacle than that of brothers 
and sisters playing and singing together 
those elevated compositions in music and 



140 



MUSIC IN THE HOME, 



poetry which gratify the taste and purify 
the heart, while their parents sit delighted 
by. We have seen and heard an elder 
sister thus leading the family choir, who 
was the soul of harmony to the whole 
household, and whose life was a perfect 
example. Parents should not fail to con- 
sider the great value of home music. Buy 
a good instrument and teach your family 
to sing and play, then they can produce 
sufficient amusement at home themselves 
so the sons will not think of looking else- 
where for it, and thus often be led into 
dens of vice and immorality. The reason 
that so many become dissipated and run 
to every place of amusement, no matter 
what its character, making every effort 
possible to get away from home at night, 
is the lack of entertainment at home. 



HOME AMUSEMENTS. 

CLOSE observer of American life 
said to us the other day that a 
~^|£>^^ great change had come in the 
last ten years to the home life 
of the country. And in answer to our 
interrogation, he proceeded to point out 
the character of this change. One point 
which he made was that a great many 
games of skill and chance were being 
played in New England homes, to-da}', 
which were not known, or if known, were 
forbidden by parents ten years ago. Our 
own observation coincides with his on 
this point. We know that chess within 
the last ten years has captured for itself a 
high place in popular regard. It speaks 
well for a people when such an intellec- 
tual game can become popular. For it 
! takes brains to play chess even moder- 
ately well, and none but clever and 
thoughtful people would ever like it. We 
noticed also that cards are no longer 
abjured as they once were in households. 
Whist and euchre are domiciled, to-day, 
in homes where, a decade ago, their names 
could not have been spoken safely save in 



a whisper. Checkers are not perhaps 
more universal, but they are more fash- 
ionable. They have fought their way into 
high life ; and whereas they once found 
their friends in the village tavern and in 
the farmer's kitchen, they are now admit- 
ted into the parlors of the wealthy and 
refined. The games played with histori- 
cal cards are also numerous and many of 
them pleasantly exciting. And you find 
them in almost every household. Now 
all this is very pleasant and hopeful. It 
reveals to the thinker the fact that home 
life is more vivacious and happy than it 
used to be ; that the long dull even- 
ings are being enlivened with sjDrightly 
and stimulating amusements, and that the 
home circle is charged with attractions 
which it once sadly lacked. These games 
are helping to make the homes of the 
country happier, helj^ing to make the 
children more contented with their homes, 
and in doing this they are helping to make 
the country more intelligent and more 
virtuous. By wise parents these games 
are looked upon as God-sends. They help 
solve the problem of home amusements 
and recreation ; and this, as all parents 
know, is one of the gravest problems they 
have to solve. Parents, make your homes 
as happy as you possibly can for your 
children and their mates. Fill them with 
fun and frolic and the cheerfulness of 
spirited social life. Play these games with 
your children yourselves, and thus share 
their joys with them ; and feed your hap- 
piness on the spectacle of theirs. A great 
many homes are like the frame of a harp 
that stands without strings. In form and 
outline they suggest music ; but no melody 
rises from the empty spaces ; and thus it 
happens that home is unattractive, dreary 
and dull. Let us hope that this introduc- 
tion of pleasant games — which will try 
botli the wit and patience of the children, 
and of the older ones for that matter, — 
may become the foshion of tlie times, 
until every home in the land shall be per- 



141 



HOME AMUSEMENTS. 



fectly furnished with these accessories of 
profit and pleasure. For the children's 
sake, let the reformation go on until every 
child shall have, in his father's house, be 
it humble or costly, such appliances and 
helps for his entertainment that he shall 
find his joy under his father's roof and in 
his father's presence. 



W . H . H . MURRAY. 



KIND MANNERS AT HOME. 

HERE are many families, the mem- 
bers of which are, without doubt, 
dear to each other. If sickness or 
sudden trouble falls on one, all are 
afflicted, and make haste to sympathize, 
help and comfort. But in their daily life 
and ordinary intercourse there is not only 
no expression of affection, none of the 
pleasant and fond behavior that has, per- 
ha^js, little dignity, but which more than 
makes up for that in its sweetness ; but 
there is an absolute hardness of language 
and actions which is shocking to every 
sensitive and tender feeling. Between 
father and mother, and brother and sis- 
ter, pass rough and hasty words ; yes, and 
angry words, far more frequently than 
words of endearment. To see and hear 
them, one would think that they hated, 
instead of loved each other. It does not 
seem to have entered into their heads that 
it is their duty, as it should be their best 
pleasure, to do and say all that they pos- 
sibly can for each other's good and haj)- 
piness. " Each one for himself, and bad 
luck take the hindermost." The father 
orders and growls, the mother frets, com- 
plains, and scolds, the children snap, 
snarl, and whine, and so goes the day. 
Alas ! for it, if this is a type of heaven ! 
— as " the family " is said to be — at least, 
it is said to be the nearest thing to heaven 
of anything on earth. But the spirit of 
selfishness, of violence, render it more like 
the other place — yes, and this too often, 
even when all the members of the house- 
hold are members of the Church. Where 



you see — when you know it — one family 
where love and gentleness reign, 5'ou see 
ten where the}^ only make visits, and this 
among Christian families as well as others. 
Now, it is a sad and melancholy thing to 
" sit solitary " in life, but give me a cave in 
the bowels of earth, give me a lodge in 
any waste, howling wilderness, where 
foot nor face of human being ever came 
rather than an abode with parents, friends, 
or kindred, in which I must hear or utter 
language which causes j)ain, or where I 
must see conduct which is not born of 
love. No wealth, no advantage of any 
kind, would induce me to hve with peo- 
ple whose intercourse was of such a nature. 
The dearer they were to me, the less would 
I remain among them, if they did not do 
all they could to make each other happy. 
With mere strangers one might endure, 
even under such circumstances, to remain 
for a time ; for what they say or do has 
but hmited effect upon one's feelings ; but 
how members of the same family, chil- 
dren of the same parents, can remain 
together, year after year, when every day 
they hear quarreling, if they do not join 
in it, and when hard words fly on all sides 
of them, thick as hail, and the very visi- 
tors in their house are rendered uncom- 
fortable bv them, is indeed a mystery. 

" Coimt life by virtues ; tbese -will last 
When life's lame, foiled, race is o'er ; 

And tbese, when eartbly joys are past, 
Shall cheer us on a brighter shore." 

HOME OF OUR CHILDHOOD. 

HOME of our chiklhood! How affection 
clings 
And hovers round thee with her seraph 
wings ! 
Dearer thy hills, though clad in autumn 

brown, 
Than fairest summits which the cedars crown; 
Sweeter the fragrance of thy summer breeze, 
Than all Arabia breathes along the seas ! 
The stranger's gale wafts home the exile's 

sigh, 
For the heart's temple is its own blue sky. 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 



142 



THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. 



INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ. 

"Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 
Their homely joys, aud destiny obscure : 

Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile. 
The short and simple annals of the poor."— gray. 

MY lov'd, my honor'd, much-respected 
friend ! 
No mercenary bard his homage 
pays ; 
With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end: 
My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and 

praise ; 
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays. 
The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene; 
The native feelings strong, the guileless 
ways ; 
"What Aiken in a cottage would have been ; 
Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier 
there, I ween ! 

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ; 

The short'ning winter-day is near a close; 
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh ; 

The black'ning trains o' craws to their 
repose : 

The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes, — 
This night his weekly moil is at an end, — 
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, 
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend. 
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does 
hameward bend. 

At length his lonely cot appears in view, 

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree ; 
Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher 
through 
To meet their "dad," wi' flichterin' noise 

an' glee. 
His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnilie, 
His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's 
smile. 
The lisping infant, prattling on his knee, 
Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile. 
And makes him quite forget his labor and his 
toil. 

Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in, 
At service out, amang the farmers roun' ; 
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie 
rin 
A cannie errand to a neibor town : 
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman 
grown, 



In youthfu' bloom — love sparkling in her e'e — 
Comes hanie; perhaps, to show a brawnew 

gown, 
Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee, 
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship 

be. 

W^ith joy unfeign'd, brothers and sisters meet, 

And each for other's welfare kindly spiers: 
The social hours, swift- wing'd, unnoticed fleet; 

Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears. 

The parents, partial, eye their hopeful 
years ; 
Anticipation forward points the view ; 

The mother, wi' her needle and her shears, 
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the 

new ; 
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. 

Their master's and their mistress's command, 

The younkers a' are warned to obey ; 
And mind their labors wi' an eydent hand, 

And ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or 
play; 

"And oh, be sure to fear the Lord alway, 
And mind 3'our duty, duly, morn and night; 

Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, 
Implore His counsel and assisting might; 
They never sought in vain that sought the 
Lord aright." 

But hark ! a rap comes gently to the door ; 

Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same. 
Tells how a neibor lad came o'er the moor. 
To do some errands, and convoy her 

hanie. 
The wily mother sees the conscious flame 
Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek ; 
With heart-struck anxious care, inquires 
his name. 
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak ; 
Weel pleased the mother hears, its nae wild, 
worthless rake. 

With kindly welcome, Jenny brings him b^^n ; 
A strappin' youth, he takes the mother's 
eye; 
Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en; 
The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and 

kye. 
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' 

joy, 
But, blate an' laithfu*, scarce can weel 
behave ; 



143 



THE COTTERS SATURDAY NIGHT, 



The motlier, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy 
What makes the youth sae bashfa' an' sae 

grave ; 
Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected 

like the lave. 

O happy love ! where love like this is found : 
O heartfelt raptures ! bliss beyond compare ! 

I've paced much this weary, mortal round, 
And sage experience bids me this declare, — 
" If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleas- 
ure spare — 

One cordial in this melancholy vale, — 
'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair 

In other's arms breathe out the tender tale. 

Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the 
evening gale." 

Is there, in human form, that bears a heart, 

A wretch ! a villain ! lost to love and truth ! 
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, 

Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth ? 

Curse on his perjured arts ! dissembling, 
smooth ! 
Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled ? 

Is there no pity, no relenting ruth. 
Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? 
Then paints the ruined maid, and their dis- 
traction wild ? 

But now the supper crowns their simple 
board. 
The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia's 
food; 
The sowpe their only hawkie does afford. 
That 'j^ont the hallan snugly chows her 

cood: 
The dame brings forth in complimental 
mood, 
To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, 
fell; 
And aft he's prest, and aft he ca's it guid : 
The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell 
How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the 
bell. 

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, 
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide ; 

The sire turns o'er, with patriarchal grace, 
The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride : 
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside. 

His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare ; 
Tiiose strains that once did sweet in Zion 
glide, 



He wales a portion with judicious care ; 
And " Let us worship God ! " he says with 
solemn air. 

They chant their artless notes in simple guise, 

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest 

aim : 

Perhaps " Dundee's " wild warbling measures 

rise, 

Or plaintive "Martyrs," worthy of the 

name ; 
Or noble " Elgin " beets the heavenward 
flame, 
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays : 

Compared with these, Italian trills are 
tame : 
The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise ; 
K"ae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. 

The priest-like father reads the sacred page, 

How Abram was the friend of God on high ; 
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage 

With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; 

Or, how the royal bard did groaning lie 
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging 
ire ; 

Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry ; 
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire • 
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. 

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme. 
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; 

How He, who bore in Heaven the second 
name, 
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head : 
How His first followers and servants sped ; 

The iDrecepts sage they wrote to many a land : 
How he, who lone in Patmos banished, 

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand, 

And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced 
by Heaven's command. 

Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal 
King 
The saint, the father, and the husband 
prays : 
Hope "springs exulting on triumphant 
wing," 
That thus they all shall meet in future days, 
There, ever bask in uncreated rays, 
"No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear. 

Together hymning their Creator's praiso= 
In such society, yet still more dear, 
WTiile circling time moves round in an eternal 
sphere. 



144 



THE ^ CO TTERS SA TURD A V NIGHT 



Compared with this, how poor Rehgion's 
pride, 
In all the pomp of method, and of art, 
When men display to congregations wide 
Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart ! 
The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert, 
The pompous strain the sacerdotal stole ; 

But haply, in some cottage far apart, 
May hear, well pleased, the language of the 

soul; 
And in his Book of Life the inmates poor 
enroll. 

Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way; 

The youngling cottagers retire to rest : 
The parent pair their secret homage pay. 
And proffer up to Heaven the warm 

request. 
That He who stills the raven's clam'rous 
nest. 
And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, 

Would in the way his wisdom sees the best, 
For them and for their little ones provide ; 
But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine 
preside. 

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur 
springs. 
That makes her loved at home, revered 
abroad: 
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 
*'An honest man's the noblest work of 
God;" 



And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road, 
The cottage leaves the palace far behind ; 

What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous 
load. 
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, 
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined I 

O Scotia ! my dear, my native soil I 

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is 
sent, 
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil 
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet 

content! 
And oh, may Heaven their simple lives pre- 
vent 
From luxury's contagion, weak and vile ! 
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be 
rent, 
A virtuous populace may rise the while, 
And stand a wall of fire around their much- 
loved isle. 

O Thou ! who pour'd the patriotic tide. 

That stream'd thro' Wallace's undaunted 
heart, <^ 

Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride, 

Or nobly die, the second glorious part ; 

(The patriot's God, peculiarly Thou art. 
His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!) 

Oh never, never Scotia's realm desert ; 
But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard, 
In bright succession raise, her ornament and 
guard! Robert burns. 




THE MEANS TO ATTAIN HAPPY LIFE, 



MARTIAL, the things that do attain 
The happy life be these, I find, — 
The riches left, not got with pain ; 
The fruitful ground, the quiet mind. 

The equal friend ; no grudge, no strife ; 

No charge of rule, nor governance ; 
Without disease, the healthful life ; 

The household of continuance ; 



The mean diet, no delicate fare ; 

True wisdom joined with simpleness; 
The night discharged of all care. 

Where wine the wit may not oppress ; 

The faithful wife, without debate ; 

Such sleep as may beguile the night ; 
Contented with thine own estate. 
Nor wish for death, nor fear his might. 

HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY, 



145 




HOW TO MAKE HOME HAPPY. 



"^""^||6j^> 



E are defeated in our at- 
tempts to make home 
cheerful and happy be- 
cause we pay too much 
and we work too hard. 
We task and weary our- 
selves so much in the 
endeavor to collect the 
materials for enjoyment 
that they can give us little pleasure when 
they are collected. It does not take much 
to make children contented and happy in 
their own home, provided parents take 
the lead in simple habits, gentle manners 
and cheerful dispositions. It takes but 
very little to make grown people love 
their homes, provided they look for its 
chief ornament and greatest charm in 
themselves, and not in things that can be 
bo tight or borrowed. The rare and costly 
ornaments of our houses give us most pain 
and least pleasure. It flatters our pride 
to be able to say that we have something 
that very few or nobody else can have. 
But our peace and comfort and joy must 
come from the most simple and common 
blessings of life. 

And the first lesson to learn in the 
happy art of making home happy, is to be 
content with simple and common things. 
The farther you go from the every-day 
])aths of life in search of happiness, the 
less likely you are to find it. A thankful 
heart makes the best dinner, a pleasant 
voice is the best music, a kind look is a 
more beautiful picture than was ever 
painted by all masters, old or new. These 
are things that all can command. They 
can be had for the humblest home with- 
out money and without price. 

If you make the happiness of the 
family depend upon things rare and 



costly and far-fetched, you will only 
nmitiply wants without improving your 
capacity to supply them. J[f your neces- 
sities increase faster than your resources, 
no matter how much money you may- 
have, you will always be poor. It is 
impossible to satisfy the heart with get- 
ting and giving. If it ever finds rest, it 
must be satisfied from itself. To be happy 
with much or little, we must learn to be 
content with such things as we have. 
The enjoyment of life does not depend 
upon the amount of possessions or the 
measure of worldly success, biit upon the 
disposition to receive everything with 
thankfulness and give everything with 
love. 

The house, the furniture, the mode of 
living, the dress, the entertainment, the 
equipage, which cost most give the least 
satisfaction, simply because they have no 
necessary connection with the enjoyment 
of life. They involve a thousand cares 
and anxieties, and they withdraw attention 
from the simple and common things 
which can make any home happy. The 
ornaments which makes the lowliest dwel- 
ling beautiful and the poorest family rich 
are kind looks, pleasant voices, gentle 
manners, cheerful hearts, simple affections. 

The best clock has the fewest wheels 
and makes the least noise. And the more 
simple the order of our domestic life, the 
better and happier it will be. Let there 
be no idle hands and no wasted hours, and 
then there will be time for everything and 
nobody will be fluttered with haste oi 
exhausted with weariness. The peace and 
happiness of the family must not depend 
upon having too many things done or too 
many hands to do it. Neatness and order 
are excellent virtues in the family, but 



146 



BOW TO MAKE HOME HAPPY, 



they may be carried to such an excess as to be 
adaily torment to everybody in the house. 

Some excellent people spend tlie best of 
their days in keeping a few articles of 
furniture arranged with painful propri- 
ety, and in sweeping and scourging a few 
particles of dust from every resting-place 
in the house. When children grow up in 
such a family, and go out into the world, 
they are apt to fly to the other extreme, 
and become very indifferent about the 
dust and disorder which have been 
denounced and fought against with anx- 
ious and angry zeal in their own homes. 

Lord Palmerston said, " Dust is matter 
out of place." But much depends on 
what we mean by things out of place. 
Theve is a great deal of what fastidious 
peo])le call dust and disorder in the world 
as God made it. He does not plant the 
trees of the forest in straight rows and set 
positions, as we place our furniture about 
our rooms. He does not cause the wild 
flowers to grow in perfect squares and 
pretty borders to be praised for their reg- 
ularity, rather than enjoyed for their 
beauty. He does not marshal the heav- 
enly host in platoons and columns like 
")ur regiments. He does not paint the 
clouds and the autumn woods and the sun- 
;?ct skies in precise shades and figures like 
our carpets and curtains. 

And we must give to the order and dis- 
cipline of the family that variety and 
elasticity which suit the spring of the 
youthful mind, and which can receive the 
shock of changes and accidents without 
strain or jar. It will greatly relieve the 
waste and wear of heart and life in house- 
keeping if the fewest and simplest things 
are set down for the necessities of the day, 
and the path for the young members of the 
family to walk in is made winding and 
flexible to work off the exuberant vitality 
of youthful feet. 



God^s bounty is so .arge and free that 
he casts the great blessings of life in at 
every door. He gives what is most essen- 
tial to our enjoyment. The most con- 
tented and happy family in the world 
nmst draw their deepest, purest, most con- 
stant satisfaction from sources that are 
equally at command of all — pleasant 
looks, kind words, loving hearts, mutual 
thoughtfulness for each other's happiness 
in the home circle. It is a higher art, a 
nobler faculty, to make home attractive 
and beautiful with good words, gracious 
manners and simple kindness than to make 
it showy with dress and dazzling with or- 
naments and costly with entertainments. 

If you wait to get more money, or a 
bigger house, or better established in the 
workl, before you begin to make home 
happy, you will be like travelers in the 
desert looking for showers where it never 
rains, or like the sailor on his foundering 
vessel loading himself with gold and leap- 
ing into the sea to die rich. If you do 
not learn to be content with simple and 
common things, then the rare and costly 
will only increase your trouble. The 
great house and the great income and the 
great expense will bring great care and 
great weariness and great sorrow. 

Seek your happiness now, from the 
grateful improvement of present blessings 
and a cheerful submission to present trials, 
and then whatever change the future may 
bring it will find you the possessor of a 
happy home. .Make your dress, your 
house, your furniture, your style of liv- 
ing, such as will not subject you to strug- 
gle and anxiety to keep up appearances, 
and then do not mind what the world 
savs. If others do not think the better 
of you for taking such a course, it is the 
worse for them and no harm to you. 

We have all heard of One who walked 
the earth with the majestv of a king and 



147 



BOW TO MAKE HOME HAPPY. 



the meekness of a child. He had no sup- 
port save what the meagra and sacred 
charities of the poor supplied. And yet 
he never complained of neglect or want. 
He had no home save such as kindness 
offers to the needy. And yet his pres- 
ence in any house made it the gate of 
heaven to all that dwelt therein. He had 
no security against worldly trouble and 
trial and temptation save such as is within 
reach of us all. And yet he was patient 
and cheerful, and the afflicted received 
him as a messecger of light and peace. 

And shall we murmur under trials 
through which the King of glory passed 
with serene and sacred joy ? Shall we 
think any lot too lowly, any home too 
humble, for us, if it be such an one as the 
Son of God has visited and made his own ? 
Shall we fret and weary our hearts and 
waste our lives with longing and striving 
for things rare and costly and far-fetched 
to make home happy, when we know that 
the simplest things are the best and the 
peace of God dwells in the lowliest hearts ? 

Nay, rather study to beautify your 
homes with the ornament of meekness, 
the grace of simplicity, the matchless 
charm of pure affection. When you enter 
into the sanctuary of the household, shut 
the door against all the ambitions, the 
rivalries, the troubles and anxieties of the 
outside world. Do not mind what others 
say about the plainness and the simplicity 
of your mode of life so long as you have 
the words of kindness upon your lips and 
the law of love in your heart. Expend 
not the wages of toil for that which is not 
bread. Weary not yourself for the pos- 
sessions which satisfy not. The happiness 
of home comes not from afar ; it need not 
be brought to your door in carriages of 
ease, or attended with liveried state. It 
flows, like fountains in the desert, from a 
grateful heart. It breaks, like the beams 



of the morning, from the cheerful mind. It 
sounds, like the music of heaven, in voices 
that are tuned to the expression of love. 

Irritations and annoyances must needs 
come in the best home. But such small 
clouds melt away and vanish like snow- 
flakes in the summer air before the calm- 
ness of faith and the serenity of a mind at 
peace with God. Be patient and cheerful 
under all the losses and disappointments 
of life. Success will come soon enough if 
it comes in God's time. It may be better 
for you to lose what another gains. 
Your loss may make you richer than his 
gain makes him. The disappointment of 
a present hope may be the dawn of a new 
day and the first step in a better life. 

A blockade of carriages and men occur- 
red in one of the narrow streets of Alex- 
andria. Our driver, doubtless thinking 
that the travelers from the JS"ew World 
must needs always be in a hurry, began 
to storm and rage because he could not 
go on. An old Moslem, sitting on his 
divan by the wayside selling sandals and 
mumbling the Koran between his bargains, 
lifted his eyes from the page and saw the 
signs of haste and wrath. Reverently 
stroking his beard, he said, " God's bles- 
sing is upon the patient." And the 
words are good and true in whatever 
creed found, by whatever lips spoken. 
God's blessing is upon all who faithfully 
work and patiently wait. To wait with- 
out working is idleness. To work with- 
out waiting is haste and passion. To work 
and wait is to walk with God and be at 
peace. We all have failings and imperfec- 
tions which others must be patient with and 
pardon, or they could not live with us. 
When we exercise the same indulgence to- 
ward them, we shall live happily in thesame 
home. Social life in the family must be a 
series of concessions, all made in love, and 
the heart is happiest that makes the most. 



148 



HOW TO MAKE HOME HAPPY, 



To complete and confirm all rules in the 
art of making home happy, there must be 
a daily and . thankful recognition of the 
heavenly Father's protecting hand. To 
be safe in the sanctuary of home, we must 
feel that it is the secret place of the Most 
High, and that we abide every night 
under the shadow of the Almighty. Let 
nothing be done in the house save that 
which would be becoming Avere Christ 
himself visibly present in the family cir- 
cle. Give all the susceptibilities of the 
heart free and ample play. Let all the 
faculties of the mind have full and favor- 
ite diversion. Let music and mirth com- 
bine to rest the weary and revive the sor- 
rowing. Let the voices of old and young 
be heard alike in sacred song and 
generous laughter. Let amusement 
mingle with study and silent reading 



alternate with loud and living discourse 
And let all work and diversion, speech 
and silence, be chastened and purified 
with the feeling and the thought of the 
heavenly Father's presence. Be not slow 
to believe that he loves to see his children 
happy. Lie down to repose at night with 
the prayer that he will give you sleep as he 
gives to his beloved. Rise up in the 
morning with thankfulness for the new 
gift of time fresh from your Father's hand. 
Eat not the bread of cares and sorrows, 
but receive gratefully what your Father 
gives, and rejoice as if i^d. on angels' food. 
So shall everything that imperils the 
peace and happiness of the family be met 
by the safeguard of trust, duty and love. 
So shall the lowliest earthly home be 
made the entrance-chamber to God's great 
house in heaven. 

DANIEL MARCH, D. D. 



HOLiE INFLUENOE. 




U R nature de- 
mands home. It 
is the first es- 
sential element 
of our social be- 
ing. This can- 
not be complete 
without the 
home relations; 
there would be no proper equilibrium of 
life and character without the home influ- 
ence. The heart, when bereaved and 
disappointed, naturally turns for refuge 
to home-life and sympathy. No spot is 
30 attractive to the weary one ; it is the 
heart's moral oasis. There is a mother's 
watchful love and a father's sustaining 
influence; there is a husband's protection 
and a wife's tender sympathy; there is 
the circle of loving brothers and sisters — 



happy in each other's love. Oh, what is 
life without these ! A desolation, a pain- 
ful, gloomy pilgrimage through "desert 
heaths and barren sands." 

Home influences may be estimated from 
the immense force of its impressions. It 
is the prerogative of home to make the 
first impression upon our nature, and to 
give that nature its first direction onward 
and upward. It uncovers the moral foun- 
tain, chooses its channel, and gives the 
stream its first impulse. It makes the 
"first stamp and sets the first seal" upon 
the plastic nature of the child. It gives 
the first tone to our desires and furnishes 
ingredients that will either sweeten or em- 
bitter the whole cup of life. These im- 
pressions are indelible and durable as life. 
Compared with them, other impressions 
are like those made upon sand or wax. 



149 



HOME INFLUENCE. 



These are like "the deep borings into the 
flinty rock." To erase them we must re- 
move every strata of our being. Even 
the infidel lives under the holy influence of 
a pious mother's impressions. John Ran- 
dolph could never shake ofi'the restraining 
influence of a little prayer his mother 
taught him when a child. It preserved him 
from the clutches of avowed infidelity. 

The home influence is either a blessing 
or a curse, either for good or for evil. It 
cannot be neutral. In either case it is 
mighty, commencing with our birth, going 
with us through life, clinging to us in 
death, and reaching into the eternal world. 
It is that unitive power which arises out 
of the manifold relations and associations 
of domestic life. The specific influences 
of husband and wife, of parent and child, 
of brother and sister, of teacher and pupi'., 
united and harmoniously blended, consti- 
tute the home influence. 

From this we may infer the charaoter 
of home influence It is great, silent, 
irresistible and permanent. Like the 
calm, deep stream, it moves on in silent, 
but overwhelming power. It strikes its 
roots deep into the human heart, and 
spreads its branches wide over our whole 
being. Like the lily that braves the 
tempest, and ^^ the Alpine flower that leans 
its cheek on the bosom of eternal snows," 
it is exerted amid the wildest storms of 
life and breathes a softening spell in our 
bosom even when a heartless world is 
freezing up the fountains of sympathy 
and love. It is governing, restraining, 
attracting and traditional.* It holds the 
empire of the heart and rules the life. It 
restrains the wayward passions of the child 
and checks him in his mad career of ruin. 

Our habits, too, are formed under the 
moulding power of home. The "tender 
twig'' is there bent, the spirit shaped, 
principles implanted, and the whole char- 



acter is formed until it becomes a habit. 
Goodness or evil are there ''resolved into 
necessity." Who does not feel this influ- 
ence of home upon all his habits of life ? 
The gray-haired father who wails in his 
second infancy, feels the traces of his child- 
hood home in his spirit, desires and habits. 
Ask the strong man in the prime of life 
whether the most firm and reliable prin- 
ciples of his character were not the inher- 
itance of the parental home. 

The most illustrious statesmen, the most 
distinguished warriors, the most eloquent 
ministers, and the greatest benefactors of 
human kind, owe their greatness to the 
fostering influence of home. Napoleon 
knew and felt this when he said, "What 
France wants is good mothers, and you 
may be sure then that France will have 
good sons.'' The homes of the American 
revolution made the men of the revolution. 
Their influence reaches yet far into the 
inmost frame and constitution of our 
glorious republic. It controls the foun- 
tains of her power, forms the character 
of her citizens and statesmen, and shapes 
our destiny as a people. 

Home, in all well constituted minds, is 
always associated with moral and social 
excellence. The higher men rise in the 
scale of being, the more important and in- 
teresti og is home. The Arab or forest man 
may care little for his home, but the Chris- 
tian man of cultured heart and developed 
mind will love his home, and generally 
love it in proportion to his moral worth. 
He knows it is the planting-ground of 
every seed of morality — the garden of 
virtue, and the nursery of religion. He 
knows that souls immortal are here trained 
for the skies ; that private worth and public 
character are made in its sacred retreat. To 
love home with a deep and abiding interest, 
with a view to its elevating influence, is 
to love truth and right, heaven and God. 



150 



.^•^^^ 



home: TH5 sw^e:test TYP^ Of HtlKSm. 




HE sweetest type of 
heaven is home — 
Day, heaveu itself is, 
the home for whose 
acquisition we are 
to strive the most 
strongly. Home, 
in one form and 
another, is the great object of life. It 
stands at the end of every day's labor, and 
beckons us to its bosom ; and life would 
be cheerless and meaningless did we not 
discern across the river that divides it 
from the life beyond, glimpses of the 
pleasant mansions prepared for us. 

Heaven ! that land of quiet rest — 
toward which those, who, worn down and 
tired with the toils of earth, direct their 
frail barks over the troubled waters of 
life, and after a long and dangerous pas- 
sage, find it — safe in the haven of eternal 
bliss. Heaven is the home that awaits 
us beyond the grave. There the friend- 
sh'*ps formed on earth, and which cruel 
death has severed, are never more to be 
broken ; and parted friends shall meet 
again, never more to be separated. 

It is an inspiring hope that, when we 
separate here on earth at the summons of 
death's angel, and when a few more years 
have rolled over the heads of those 
remaining, if ^' faithful unto death," we 
shall meet again in heaven, our eternal 
home, there to dwell in the presence of our 
heavenly Father, and go no more out 
forever. 

At the best estate, my friends, we are 
only pilgrims and strangers. Heaven is 
^o be our eternal home. Death will never 
linock at the door of that mansion, and 



in all that land there will not be a single 
grave. Aged parents rejoice very much 
when on Christmas Day or Thanksgiving 
Day they have their children at home ; 
but there is almost always a son or a daugh- 
ter absent — absent from the country, 
perhaps absent from the world. But oh, 
how our Heavenly Father will rejoice in 
the long thanksgiving day of heaven, 
when He has all His children with Him 
in glory ! How glad brothers and sisters 
will be to meet after so long a separation ! 
Perhaps a score of years ago they parted 
at the door of the tomb. Now they meet 
again at the door of immortality. Once 
they looked through a glass darkly. 
Now, face to face, corruption, incorrup- 
tion — mortality, immortalit3\ Where are 
now all their sorrows and temptations and 
trials ? Overwhelmed in the Red Sea of 
death, while they, dry-shod, marched into 
glory. Gates of jasper, capstone of 
amethyst, thrones of dominion do not so 
much afPect my soul as the thought of 
home. Once there, let earthly sorrows 
howl like storms and roll like seas. 
Home! Let thrones rot and empires 
wither. Home ! Let the world die in 
earthquake struggles and be buried amid 
procession of planets and dirge of spheres. 
Home ! Let everlasting ages roll iii irre- 
sistible sweep. Home ! No sorrow, no 
crying, no tears, no death; but home! 
Sweet home ! Beautiful home ! Glori- 
ous home! Everlasting home! Home 
with each other! Home with angels! 
Home with God ! Home, Home ! 
Through the rich grace of Christ Jesus, 
may we all reach it. 



151 




HEAVEN A HOME. 





'EAVEN is a Home. It is 
an abode where the 
weary come in from a 
Hfetime of toil to rest, 
where the sorrowing 
cease from their sighs 
and the weeping put 
away their tears, where 
the noise of conflict 
never comes and the 
voices of the loved fall 
like music on the ear. 
Heaven is a home 
where sympathy shines in every look and 
heart answers to heart in the sweet 
responses of love, where the 'feeling of 
security and repose is disturbed by no jar 
of discord, no threat of danger, where 
dear and sacred associations gather around 
a life that runs through thousands of 
years. 

Heaven is a home where those of con- 
genial tastes and pure affections meet, 
where the yearning heart finds others to 
trust and to love, and the unuttered wish 
is understood and answered, and confid- 
ing friends live in each other lives of com- 
mon feeling and calm delight. Heaven 
is a home where happy children love the 
same Father, and receive from his hand 
the same blessing, and share alike in the 
same infinite inheritance. Heaven is a 
home where sickness never comes, and 
painful partings are not known, and all 
the great family live on from age to age 
in immortal youth. 

The heavenly house has many man- 
sions, and there is room enough for all. 
The heavenly city has many gates, and 
they stand open day and night for all to 
enter. And the tree of life has many 
fruits, for every variety of taste to choose. 
And it brings forth in every month of the 
year, that there may be no want; and its 



leaves are for the healing of the nations, 
that every kindred and tribe may live. 

And this home, so great, so beautiful^ 
so blessed, is very near. It is only hid- 
den by a veil, not by a wall, or a dark sea, 
or a cold river, or a pathless desert, or the 
distance from world to world. It is only 
separated from God's children on earth by 
a thin veil, a curtain so light that it can 
be blown away by the wind, it can be 
rent by the hand of a child, it can vanish 
like vapor into thin air. I was studying 
the face of the moon the other night when 
a passing cloud cut off my view. I turned 
to adjust my glass, and then lifted my 
eye to see how long I must wait before I 
could resume my observation, and the 
cloud was gone. It had not moved out 
of the way, but it had melted into clear 
air. So shall we be looking at the cloud 
which hides the heavenly home and won- 
dering when it will pass away, and sud- 
denly, without our noticing any change, 
the city will be before us in its glorious 
beauty, and we shall know nothing more 
of the shadow of death. 

For you who believe in Jesus, the door 
of the many-mansioned house may swing 
open at any moment and as easily as you 
wave your hand. There are no bolts nor 
fastenings on that door, and none whose 
longing hearts draw them to such a home 
are left to stand without. Heaven is a 
place prepared by Him who made all 
worlds. The great Builder has gone on 
before to make ready for the coming of 
all who wish to follow him. There wiU 
be a great feast and many guests when all 
the dispersed children of God are gathered 
in. There will be great j oy , and millions of 
voices will unite in mighty song, when 
the Master of the house appears and finds 
all his children home. 



DANIEL MARCH 



152 



AND 



MOT/^ 




ODE OF FATHERHOOD. 



OH, father! sitting at thy hearth, 
With sunny heads around and lisping 
talk, 
For whom the world without and all 
the earth 
Is nought to this ; and to the strong deep love 
Which, mixed with pity, all thy soul doth 

move. 
Strong worker, watching o'er the tottering 

walk 
And feeble limbs and growing thought and 

brain. 
Rejoicing in each new-found gain 
As the first sire, alone in Paradise ; 



And patient and content to work all day, 

If with the eve returning from thy toil 

Thou canst put off the sad world's stain and scil. 

And bending downward to thy children's eyes. 

Rise cleansed and pure as they. 

I know not if life holds a more divine 

Or fixirer lot than thine. 

Strong, patient worker, king of those who can 

To its high goal of Things to be, 

Its. goal of Fate and Mystery, 

Lead forth the race of Man I 



Thy way is ofttimes hard, 
And toilsome oft thy feet f 



lie 



153 



ODE OF FATHERHOOD. 



Thine are the days of anxious care, 

When the spent brain reels, or the strong arm 

tires ; 
Yet all the ease and charm of days that 

were. 
And pleasure paling all their fading fires. 
Allure no more, but the tired hunter now. 
Or now the worker with the furrowed brow 
On frozen wastes or sun-struck thou dost 

show ; 
By mart; or loom, or mine, or bending down 
Chained to thy desk within the stifling town, 
Thou toilest daily that thy brood may live. 
Cares are thine, cares, and the unselfish 

mind 
Which spends itself for others and can find 
How blest it is without return to give. 
Whate'er thy race or speech, thou art the 

same ; 
Before thy eyes Duty, a constant flame. 
Shines always steadfast with unchanging 

light,_ 
Through dark days and through bright. 

Sometimes, by too great misery bowed down, 
Or poison-draughts brought lower than the 

beast. 
Thou comest to hate the hollow eyes around, 
Dreading thy cares increased, 
And dost despise thy own. 
A.nd canst thy dead heart steel against their 

cries, 
And mark unmoved the hunger in their 

eyes ; 
Or sometimes, filled with love, art powerless 

to aid. 
Oh, misery, to make our souls afraid ! 

Or if a happier lot 

Await thee, yet by precious wells of tears 

Thy life's road goes, vain hopes and anxious 

fears. 
Thine 'tis, perchance, to mark the grassy 

mound 
^ATiich keeps, w^ithin the churchyard's narrow 

ground, 
Thy darling who is not. 
Hopes sunk in tears, tears that ascend to 

hope; 
Such is thy horoscope. 
Oh father, standing by the little grave, 
And impotent to save ! 

Thy heart is moved with pity 

For thy young growing lives, who come 



To leave the safe and sacred walls of home, 
For whose young souls, Life, like a cruei 

city, 
Spreads out her nets of sin. 
Thou knowest well of old 
The strong allurements which they scarce 

may shun, 
The subtle wiles, the innocent lives undone, 
The tide of passion, scorning all control. 
And thou art filled wdth an immense despair, 
^Mierefrom thy heart beats slow, thy eyes 

grow dim. 
As when of yore thou heardst them lisp a 

hymn 
With early childish lips : thou canst not 

bear 
To think of that young whiteness soiled and 

foul. 
Or that thick darkness blotting the 3'oung 

soul. 

Yet from thy grief and pain 

Comes ofttimes greater gain 

Than all thy loss. 

Thou knowest what it is to grieve, 

And from the burden of thy cross 

Thou comest to believe. 

Thou who hast lost and yet doth love, 

Thou, too, a Father hast in some dim sphere 

above, 
"WTio dost regard thy joys, thy miseries, 
Thy petty doubts of Him, thy feeble learning. 
Thy faults, thy pains, thy childish doubt and 

yearning, 
Even as thou dost these. 



ODE OF MOTHERHOOD. 

^g^UT here is one who over all the earth 
Is worshipped and is blest, 
Who doth rejoice from holier springs 
of mirth, 

And sorrows from a deeper fount of tears, 
On Avhose sweet bosom is our earliest re^i., 
Whose tender voice that cheers 
Is our first memory, which still doth last 
Thro' all our later past — 
The love of love or child, the world-worn 

strife, 
The turmoil and the triumphs of a life — 
The sweet maid-mother, pure and mild, 



154 



ODE OF MOTHERHOOD. 



Tlie deep love undefiled. 

Thou art the universal praise 

Of every human heart, the secret shrine 

Where seer and savage keep a dream divine 

Through growing and dechning days ; 

And but for thee 

And thy unselfish love, thy sacrifice, 

Which brings heaven daily nearer to our eyes, 



Men whom the rude world stains, men chilled 

by doubt. 
Would find no ray of Deity 
To fire a Faith gone out. 

Our life from a twofold root 
Springs upwards to the sky. 
One, surface only, shared with tree and ])rute, 

And one, as deejj and strong as heaven 
is high. 

Spirit and sense. 

Each* bears its part and dwells in in- 
nocence. 

Yet only grown together can they bear 

The one consummate fruit, 

The flower is good, the flower is fair, 

But holds no lasting sweetness in its 




155 



ODE OF MOTHERHOOD. 



1^0 seed of life within. 

But the ripe fruit witliin its orbed gold 

Doth hidden secrets hold ; 

Within its honied wells set safe and deep, 

The Future lies asleep. 

Of shamefastness our being is born, 

Of shamefastness and scorn. 

Oh, wonder, that so high dost soar ! 

Oh, vision, blest for evermore ! 

With every throe of birth 

Two glorious Presences make glad the earth : 

The stainless mother and the Eternal Child. 

Of the heart comes love, of the heart and not 

the bram ; 
To heights where Thought comes not can 

Love attain : 
We cannot tell at all, we may not know, 
How to such stature high our lower natures 

grow ; 
WTiat strong instinctive thrill 
The mother's being doth fill. 
And raises it from miry common ways. 
Up to such heights of love. 
We cannot tell what blessed forces move, 
And so transform the careless girlish heart 
To bear so high a part. 
We cannot tell ; we can but praise. 

Fair motherhood, by every childish tongue 
Thy eulogy is sung. 
In every passing age 
The theme of seer and sage : 
The painters saw thee in a life-long dream ; 
The painters who have left a world more fair 
Than ever days of nymph and goddess were — 
Blest company, who now for centuries 
Have fixed the virgin mother for our eyes — 
The painters saw thee sitting brown or fair, 
And the Tuscan vines or colder Northern air ; 
They saw the love shine from thy peasant 

gaze; 
They saw thy reverent look, thy young amaze 
And left thee Queen of Heaven, wearing a 

crown 
Of glory ; and abased at thy sweet breast. 
Spurning his robes of kingship down. 
The God-child laid at rest. 

They found thee, and they fixed thee for our 

eyes; 
But every day that goes 
Before the gazer new Madonnas rise. 
What matter if the cheek show not the rose, 
Nor eyes divine are there nor queenly grace? 



The mother's glory lights the homely face. 
In every land beneath the circling sun 
Thy praise is never done, 
AMiatever men may doubt, they put their 

trust in thee ; 
Rude souls and coarse, to whom virginity 
Seems a dead thing and cold. 
So always was it from the days of old ; 
So shall it be while 3^et our race doth last^. 
Though truth be sought no more and faith be 

past, 
Still, till all hope of heaven be dead, 
Thy praises shall be said. 

Aye, thou art ours, or wert, ere yet 

The loss we ne'er forget, 

The loss which comes to all who reach life's 

middle way. 
We see thee by the childish bed 
Sit patient all night long. 
To cool the parching lips or throbbing head ; 
We hear thee still with simple song 
Or sweet hymn lull the wakeful eyes to sleep ; 
Through every turning of life's chequered 

page, 
Joying with those who joy, weeiDing -uith 

those who weep. 
Oh, sainted love ! oh, precious sacrifice ! 
Oh, heaven-lighted eyes ! 
Best dream of early youth, .best memory of 

age! 



THE MOTHER. 

ASOFTEXING thought of other years, 
A feeling link'd to hours 
When Life was all too bright for 
tears, — 
And Hope sang, wreath 'd with flowers I 
A memory of affections fled — 
Of voices — heard no more ! — 
Stirred in my spirit when I read 
That name of fondness o'er ! 

Oh Mother I — in that early word 

What loves and joys combine ; 
What hopes — too oft, alas ! — deferr'd ; 

What vigils — griefs — are thine !— 
Yet, never, till the hour we roam, 

By Avorldly thralls opprest. 
Learn we to prize that truest home — • 

A watchful mother's breast ! 



The thousand prayers at midnight pour'U. 
Beside our couch of woes j 



156 



THE MOTHER. 



The wasting wearinof^s endured 

To soften our repose ! — 
Whilst never murmur mark'd thy tongue- 

Nor toils relax 'd thy care :— 
How, Mother, is thy heart so strong 

To pity and forhear ? 

Wliat filial fondness e'er repaid, 

Or could repay, the past? — 
Alas! for gratitude decay 'd 

Regrets — that rarely last! — 
'T is only when the dust is thrown 

Thy lifeless bosom o'er, 
We muse upon thy kindness shown — 

And wish we'd loved thee more ! 

'T is only when thy lips are cold, 
We mourn ivith late regret, 



'Mid myriad memories of old, 

The days for ever set! 
And not an act— nor look — nor thought^ 

Against thy meek control, 
But with a sad remembrance fraught 

Wakes anguish in the soul! 

On every land — in every clime — 

True to her sacred cause, 
Fill'd by that effluence sublime 

From which her strength she draws, 
Still is the Mother's heart the same — 

The Mother's lot as tried : — 
Then, oh ! may Nations guard that name 

With filial power and pride ! 

CHARI ES SWAIN. 



^1// 

w 

^m^ 



\ 



MY MOTHER'S HANDS. 




UCH beautiful, beautiful hands I 
They're neither white nor small, 
And you, I know, would scarcely think 
That they were fair at all. 
I've looked on hands whose form and hue 
A sculptor's dream might be, 
Yet are these aged, wrinkled hands, 
More beautiful to me. 

Such beautiful, beautiful hands ! 
Though heart Avere weary and sad. 
These patient hands kept toiling on 
That children might be glad. 



I almost weep, as looking back 
To childhood's distant day, 
I think how these hands rested not 
When mine were at their play. 



Such, beautiful, beautiful hands ! 

They're growing feeble now; 

For time and pain have left their work 

On hand, and heart, and brow. 

Alas! alas! the wearing time, 

And the sad, sad day to me, 

When 'neath the daisies, out of sight, 

Thei^e hands will folded be. 



But 0, beyond this shadowy damp, 

Where all is bright and fiiir, 

I know full well these dear old hands 

Will palms of victory bear : 

Where crystal streams, thro' endless 

Flow over golden sands 

And where the old grow young again, 

I'll clasp my mother's hands. 



years 



157 




}^Hl'fp^!i'/^ 



THE MOTHER. 



*T" O ! at the couch where infant beauty And weaves a song of melancholy joy, — 

I J sleeps, "Sleep, image of thy father, sleep, my boy: 

■^ ^ Her silent watch the mournful No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine ; 

mother keeps ; IS'o sigh that rends thy father's heart and mine ; 

She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies, Briglit as his manly sire the son shall be 

Smiles on her slumbering child Avith pensive In form and soul ; but ah! more blest than 



eyes, 



he! 



158 



THE MOTHER. 



Thy fame, thy worth, thy tihal love, at last, 
Shall soothe this aching heart for all the past, 
With many a smile my solitude repay, 
And chase tlie world's ungenerous scorn away. 

" And say, Avhen summoned from the world 

and thee, 
I lay my head beneath the willow-tree. 
Wilt thou, sweet mourner! at my stone 

appear, 
And soothe my parted spirit lingering near ? 
Oh, wilt thou come, at evening hour, to shed 
The tears of memory o'er my narrow bed ; 
With aching temple on thy hand reclined, 
Muse on the last farewell I leave behind, 
Breathe a deep sigh to winds that murmur low, 
And think on all my love, and all my woe?" 



So speaks affection, ere the infant eye 

Can look regard, or brighten in reply. 

But when the cherub lip hath learnt to claim 

A mother's ear by that endearing name ; 

Soon as the playful innocent can prove 

A tear of pity, or a smile of love. 

Or cons his murmuring tasks benenth hei 

care, 
Or lisps, with holy look, his evening prayer, 
Or gazing mutely pensive, sits to hear 
The mournful ballad warbled in his ear ; 
How fondly looks admiring hope the while, 
At every artless tear, and every smile ! 
How glows the joyous parent to descry 
A guileless bosom, true to sympathy ! 

THOMAS CAMPBELL. 



HER MOTHER'S EAR. 



THEY sat at the spinning together, 
And they spun the fine white thread ; 
One face was old and the other young, 
A golden and silver head. 

And at times the young voice broke in song 

That was wonderfully sweet. 
And the mother's heart beat deep and calm. 

For her joy was most complete. 

And at times the mother counseled 

In a voice so soft and low. 
How the untried feet of her daughter 

Through this strange, rough life should go. 

There was many a holy lesson 

Inwoven with silent prayer, 
Taught to her gentle, listening child, 

As they two sat spinning there. 

"And of all that I speak, my darling, 

From my older head and heart, 
God giveth me one last thing to say, 

And with it thou shalt not part : 

•'Thou wilt listen to many voices — 
And, ah woe, that tliis must be! — 

The voice of praise and the voice of love 
And the voice of flattery ; 

" But listen to me, my little one; 
There's one thing that thou shalt fear. 



Let never a word to my love be said 
Which her mother maj^ not hear. 

" No matter how true, my darling one, 

The words may seem to thee, 
They are not fit for ni}' child to hear 

If they cannot be told to me. 

" If thou'lt ever keep thj- young heart 
pure, 

And thy mother's heart from fear, 
Bring all that is told to thee by day 

At night to thy mother's ear." 

And thus they sat spinning together, 

And an angel bent to see 
The mother and child whose happy life 

Went on so lovingly. 

And a record was made by his golden pen, 

And this on his page he said, 
That the mother who connseled her child so 
well 

Need never to feel afraid ; 

For God would keep the heart of the child 

Who with tender love and fear, 
Should kneel at her mother's side at night, 

With lips to her mother's ear ! 

EMMA M. JOHNSTON. 



159 




OUR LILY OF LOVE. 



^f 



UE, babe? Alas ! she is no longer ours; 
God sent His silent gardener one 
day 
To cull a posy of earth's rarest floAvers ; 
Moving at leisure 'niong love's 
brightest bowers, 
He paused to pluck our lily from her spray. 



The tender petals closed around the fair, 
Sweet heart, all innocence and purity; 
We saw our blossom droop, and pleaded, 

"Spare!" 
A soft voice, floating earthward through the air, 
Breathed, "Be resigned; it is the Lord's 
decree." 



160 



OUR LILY OF LOVE, 



Mutely we knelt beside our flow'ret's bed, 

Hand-linked in tearful trouble, half-inclined 
To murmur at the mandate that hath sped 
With lightning swiftness through our hearts, 
and spread 
Death's dearth o'er all. Anon we grew 
resigned : 

Resigned, because we knew she was not lost; 

Resigned, because Ave knew our bud of love 

(When the dark boundary of death was 

crossed, 
And God had wiped away the clinging frost) 
Would bloom for aye in heaven's bowers 
above. 

Here is a ringlet of our darling's hair. 
Soft as the softest silk, and golden bright 

As sunshine shimmering through summer air ; 

And here a Mkeness of our floweret fjiir 
Who blossoms now in realms that know no 
night. 

The days seem dull, however bright the sun, 
And we are mournful now who erst were 

gay; 

But we will hope until our lives are done, 

That we in heaven may see our little one 

Blossoming on a pure celestial spray. 



MY GOOD, OLD-FASHIONED MOTHER. 



T 



'HEY brought home the portrait last night 
to me ; 
On the parlot walls it is hung. 
I gave to the artist a picture small. 

Which was taken when she was young. 
It's true to life — and here's a look in the eyes 

I never saw in another. 
And the same sweet smile that she always 
wore — 
'Twas my good, old-fashioned mother. 

The hair in the picture's wavy and dark, 

'Twas taken before she was gray. 
And the same vshort curls, at the side, hang 
down. 

For she always wore it that way. 
Her hand on the Bible easily rests, 

As when, with sisters and brother, 
I knelt at her knee, reciting my verse, 

To my good, old-fashioned mother. 

Her dress it is plain and quite out of style, 

Not a puff or ruffle is there ; 
' Bd no jewels or gold glitter and shine — 

She never had any to wear. 
12c 



Ambition "or wealth, or love of display, 

We could not even discover. 
For jioor in spirit and humble in heart. 

Was my good, old-fashioned mother. 

Her life was crowded with work and witb 
care- 
How did she accomplish i"^ all I 

I do not remember she ever complained, 
And yet she was slender and small. 

Motives of life that were selfish or wrong. 
With Christian grace did she smother. 

And lived for her God, the loved ones 
home — 
My true, good, old-fashioned mother. 

The 3^ears of her life were only three-score, 

When the messenger whispered, low, 
" The Master has come and calleth for thee.' 

She answered, "I'm ready to go." 
I gaze alone on her portrait to-night. 

And more than ever I love her. 
And I thank the Lord that gave to me 

Such a good, old-fashioned mother. 

MRS. S. T. PKRRY. 



at 



A 



TIRED MOTHERS, 

LITTLE elbow leans upon your knee — • 
Your tired knee that has so much to 
bear; 
A child's dear eyes are looking lovingly 
From underneath a thatch of tan- 
gled hair. 
Perhaps you do not heed the velvet touch 

Of warm, moist fingers holding you so tight; 
You do not prize the blessing overmuch^ 
You almost are too tired to pray to-night. 

But it is blessedness ! A year ago 

I did not see it as I do to-day — 
We are all so dull and thankless, and too slow 

To catch the sunshine till it slips away. 
And now it seems surpassing strange to me 

That while I wore the badge of motherhood 
I did not kiss more oft and tenderly 

The little child that brought me only good. 

And if, some night when you sit down to rest, 
You miss the elbow from your tired knee ; 

This restless curly head from ofi' your breast; 
This lisping tongue that chatters constantly; 

If from your own, the dimpled hands had 
slipped, 
And ne'er would nestle in your palm again; 



161 



TIRED MOTHERS. 



If the white feet into the grave had tripped — 
I could not blame you for your heartache 
then. 

I wonder so that mothers ever fret 

At their little children clinging to their 
gowns ; 
Or that the foot-prints, when the days are wet, 

Are ever black enough to make them frown ! 
If I could find a little muddy boot, 

Or cap, or jacket, on my chamber floor — 
If I could kiss a rosy, restless foot. 

And hear it patter in my house once more ; 

If I could mend a broken cart to-day, 

To-morrow make a kite to reach the sky — 
There is no woman in God's world could say 

She was more blissfully content than I ! 
But, ah, the dainty pillow next mine own 

Is never rumpled by a shining head, 
My singing birdling from its nest has flown — 

The little boy I used to kiss — is dead ! 

MRS. MAY RILEY SMITH. 




TRIBUTE TO A MOTHER. 

HILDEEN, look in 
those eyes, listen to that 
dear voice, notice the 
feeling of even a single 
touch that is bestowed 
upon you by that gentle 
hand. Make much of 
it while yet you have 
that most precious of all 
good gifts, a loving 
mother. Read the uu- 
fathomable love of those eyes ; the kind 
anxiety of that tone and look, however 
slight your pain. In after-life you may 
have friends, fond, dear, kind friends ; 
but never will you have again the inex- 
pressible love and gentleness lavished 
upon you which none but a mother 
bestows. Often do I sigh in my strug- 
gles with the hard, uncaring world, for 
the sweet deep security I felt w^hen, of an 
evening, nestling in her bosom, I listened 
to some quiet tale, suitable to my age. 



read in her tender and untiring voice. 
!Never can I forget her sweet glances cast 
upon me when I appeared asleep ; never 
her kiss of peace at night. Years have 
passed away since we laid her beside my 
father in the old churchyard; yetstillher 
voice whispers from the grave, and her 
eye watches over me, as I visit spots long 
since hallowed to the memory of my 
mother. 



LORD MACAULAY. 



THE MOTHER'S DAY-DREAM. 

MOTHEE sat at her sewing. 

But her brow was full of thought ; 
"^^ ^^ The little one playing beside her 

Her own sweet mischief wrought. 
A book on a chair lay near her ; 

'Twas open, I strove to see. 
At the old Greek artist's story, 
" I paint for eternity." 

So I fancied all her dreaming ; 

I watched her serious eye 
As the 'broidery dropped from her fingers, 

And she heaved a heartfelt sigh. 
She drew the little one nearer, 

And looked on the sunny face, 
Swept the bright curls from the open brow, 

And kissed it with loving grace. 

And she thought, " I, too, am an artist; 

My life-work here I see, 
This sweet, dear face, my hand must tracs, 

I must paint for eternity. 
Hence, each dark passion shadow! 

Pain's deeply-graven lines ! 
Hers must be the reflected beauty 

That from the pure heart shines. 

"But how shall I blend the colors, 

How mingle the light and shade, 
Or arrange the weird surroundings 

The future has arrayed? 
Oh, Life ! thou hast weary nightfalls, 

And days all drear that be, 
But, from thy darkness, "marvelous gracs 

Wilt thou evoke for me ? 



*' Alas, that I am but a learner! 
So where shall I make me wise, 



162 



THE MOTHERS DAY-DREAM, 



Or obtain the rare old colors, 

The Master's precious dyes ? 
I must haste to the fount of beauty, 

Must pleasingly kneel at His feet, 
And crave, 'mid his wiser scholars, 

The humblest pupil's seat. 

" Then, hand and heart together, 

Some grace shall add each day ; 
Thus, thus, shall her face grow lustrous 

With beauty that can not decay. 
My darling ! God guide my pencil. 

And grant me the vision to see 
In the light of His love, without blemish or 
stain. 

In the coming eternity." 

Then the mother awoke from her day-dream, 

Her face grew bright again. 
And I knew her f^iith was strengthened 

By more than angel's ken. 
Her fingers flew the faster 

As she sang a soft, low song ; 
It seemed like a prayer, for the child so fair, 

As it thrilled the air along. 

A. c. M. 



RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS. 

THE home is the fountain of civ- 
ilization. Americans are a 
home-making people. Our 
laws are made in the home. 
There are trained the voters who shape 
the course of our country. The things 
said there give bias to character far more 
than do sermons and lectures, newspapers 
and books. No other audiences are so sus- 
ceptible and receptive as those gathered 
about the table and the fireside. No other 
teachers have the acknowledged divine 
right to instruct that is granted without 
challenge to parents. The fountain of our 
national life is under their hand. They 
can make it send forth waters bitter or 
sweet, for the death or the healing of the 
people. 

Intemperance strikes first and most 
fatally at the home. The evils most dan- 
gerous to social order depend upon dram- 
drinking for their existence. This too is 



the scene of its most cruel and beastly 
devilisms. Here it smites, and stabs, and 
kills. The home must be guarded against 
its outrages, or the country will be ruined. 

The best work against intemperance 
must be done in this center and seat of 
power. Parents have it in their power to 
train their children to abhor that which is 
evil and cleave to that which is good; and 
they owe them this duty. They bring 
their children into existence. They hold 
them under their hand till the young life 
has taken a bias that will last through 
eternity. Usually the tiny, tilting craft 
has its prow turned toward heaven or hell 
before the parent's hand lets go the helm. 
This ought to startle careless people out of 
their indifference. It ought to drive them 
to lives of piety ; for how can they teach 
that which they have not learned ? How 
can they impart what they do not possess ? 

Parents must teach by example. Pre- 
cept has no authority unless backed by 
example. For the children's sake all 
liquors ought to be banished from the 
home. The story is most pitiful, and 
quite too common to need repetition : " I 
learned to drink at my father's table. My 
mother's hand first passed me the cup 
that is working my damnation." 

In every home there ought to be the 
right reading on this subject. We are 
what we read — or we read what we are — 
as you will. One thing is certain : If we 
really care much about this horrible traf- 
fic, we will see to it that our children have 
books and papers that will keep them in 
sympathy with the efforts made for its 
prohibition. By personal example, by 
book, by reading, and by prayer, we 
may make an atmosphere that shall set 
and keep our households right on this 
great question. Only thus can we hope 
to save ourselves, and those whom God 
has given to be with us, from the tide that 
sweeps to destruction so many of the 
noblest and best. 



T. F. w. 



163 



MY MOTHER DEAR. 



^ 



HERE was a place in childhood that I remember well, 

And there a voice of sweetest tone bright fairy tales did tell, 
And gentle words and fond embrace were giv^n with joy to me^ 
When I was in that happy place : — upon my Mother's knee. 



"When fairy tales were ended, ^'Good night" she softly said, 
And kiss'd and laid me down to sleep, within my tiny bed ; 
And holy words she taught me there — methinks I yet can see 
Her angel eyes, as close I knelt beside my Mother's knee. 

In the sickness of my childhood ; the perils of my prime ; 

The sorrows of my riper years ; the cares of ev'ry time ; 

When doubt and danger weighed me down — then pleading all for me, 

It was a fervent pray'r to Heaven that bent my Mother's knee. 



SAMUEL LOVER, 



^ea- 



OUR MOTHER. 



UR mother's lost her youthfulness, 
Her locks are turning gray, 
And wrinkles take the place of 
smiles — 
She's fading every day. 
We gaze at her in sorrow now, 

For though we've ne'er been told 
We can but feel the weary truth — 
Our mother's growing old. 

Our mother's lost her youthfulness, 

Her eyes grow dim with tears, 
Yet still within her heart there shines 

Some light of other years ; 
For oft she'll speak in merry tones. 

Smile as in youth she smiled, 
As o'er her heart some memory steals 

Of when she was a child. 

Our mother's lost her youthfulness, 

The light step has grown slow. 
The graceful form has learned to stoop, 

The bright cheek lost its glow. 
Her weary hands have grown so thin, 

Her dear hand trembles now; 
" Passing away," in sad, deep lines, 

Is traced upon her brow. 



Our mother's lost her youthfulness, 

Her smiles are just as kind. 
Her tones to us are soft as erst, — 

Where should we dearer find ? 
But as we note the trembling tongue, 

And mark the stooping form, 
A sad voice whispers to our hearts, — 

"Ye cannot keep her long." 

Our mother's lost her youthfulness, 

We see it every day. 
And feel more drearily the truth, 

She soon must pass away. 
Ah ! even now the "boatman pale" 

We fear is hovering nigh ; 
Waiting with white sails all unfurled, 

He will not heed our cry. 

But gently bear the wearied form 

Into the phantom bark, 
She will not fear — Christ went before, 

The way will not be dark ; 
And safe beyond the troubled stream, 

Her tired heart's strife o'er, 
Our angel mother, glorified, 

Will grow old nevermore 

— Rural New \orker 



164 



^ 

"■ ^g - p She fldoiPHEi^ AT Rome. 4^^ 



ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON says, 
"Fill the bushel with good 
wheat, and there will be no 
room for chaff and rubbish.'' 
This is a good thought for every 
mother while tending her children, and 
watching the growth of their power in 
body and mind. 

"As soon as they be born," the Bible 
says, "children go astray, speaking lies." 
So soon, therefore, will a Christian mother 
begin to "train her child in the way he 
should go," ^h-ixi good habits may be formed, 
ready to carry out good principles as the 
child grows old enough to understand the 
reason for his conduct. 

Good moral habits are essential to the 
healthfulness of the home ; and these may 
be best taught by the watchful mother's 
training. One important part of her work 
is to remove hindrances out of her chil- 
dren's way to health and happiness. No 
dirt, or dirty habits, for example, should 
be permitted. Washing their hands and 
faces many times in the day will often 
remove a sense of discomfort which makes 
them fretful, as also will giving them food 
at regular periods. Ragged dress, too, and 
broken fastenings, add a feeling of degra- 
dation, that a careful mother will prevent 
as far as possible by keeping their clothes 
whole, neat, and clean. Making their 
own garments, we may here remark, gives 
useful employment to gitls, and is an im- 
portant aid in training them up to thrifty 
habits. Many families go in rags because 
they never learned to sew ; while the same 
w^ages in the hands of those who know 
how to emj^loy that useful "one-eyed 
servant," the needle, keep the household 
looking always respectable. 

Children also should have time io play. 
Happiness is a great promoter of health. 
The Bible mentions " boys and girls play- 



ing in the streets," as one sign of national 
prosperity. They do not need expensive 
toys. A little French prince turned from 
his new year's present of toys from an 
empress grandmother to watch some peas- 
ants making dirt pies, and, it is said, begged 
the queen, his mother, to allow him to join 
in the sport which seemed so charming to 
his childish eye, as offering some scope to 
his ingenuity. A few old bits of wood, of 
scraps of broken crockery, stones, and 
oyster-shells, afford inexhaustible amuse- 
ment, cost nothing, and do not spoil; 
while if the mother will now and then 
put in a word to show an interest in her 
little ones' games, her own spirit will be 
refreshed and cheered by their light-heart- 
edness. 

Children are wonderful imitators, so 
that it is comparatively easy to lead them 
early into good ways. They are never so 
happy as when trying to do what they see 
older people do. Their plays chiefly con- 
sist in copying elders. The little cottager 
" makes believe " to go to market, to plant 
a garden, to make hay, to wash, to build, 
to cook, and to teach in school. The boys 
are never merrier than when playing at 
horses, or in some other way aspiring to 
be like their elders. Many of these games 
bring the bodily organs into excellent 
exercise, and strengthen and build up the 
system wonderfully. These amusements, 
too, often really prepare the children for 
the actual business of life, so that they 
the sooner become helpful to their parents. 
They should be watclied and encouraged 
therefore in their play to habits of thought- 
fulness and self-reliance. 

Let it be remembered also, that, while 
by all means it is well to send children to 
school, the largest portion of their educa- 
tion, whether for good or evil, is carried 
on at home, often unconsciously, in theii 



165 



THE MOTHER AT HOME. 



amusements, and under the daily influ- 
ence of what they see and hear about 
them. It is there that " subtle brains and 
lissom fingers" find scope, and learn to 
promote the welhbeing of the community. 
We cannot tell what duties our children 
may be called to perform in after-life ; 
many of our greatest men were born poor 
cottagers. But we can^ in a great measure, 
preserve their brains and limbs from in- 
jury ; we can cultivate their faculties, and 
teach them to exercise all their senses, — 
to use their hands diligently and skill- 
fully, to observe with their eyes, to listen 
to good instruction ; in short, we can, by 
God's help, teach them, as the prophet 
says, " to choose the good and refuse the 
evil." We can encourage them to be apt 
to learn, so that they may with readiness 
set about any duty which God may place 
before them. 

Are the children naughty ? Must they 
be punished? "The Lord loveth the son 
whom He chasteneth ; " " As many as I 
love I rebuke and chasten," are texts 
which will mitigate the anger of both 
father and mother, and teach them to 
adopt such means of correction as shall 
improve instead of harden their children's 
minds. Is a little daughter lame and 
sickly ? Does a son get into a hard place? 
" Like as a father pitieth his children, so 
the Lord pitieth them that fear Him;" 
*'As one whom his mother comforteth, so 
will I comfort you," saith the Lord. 

Does work fail and removal among 
strangers seem inevitable ? The children's 
conclusion that " Father will see about it," 
" Mother will be with us," are phrases full 
of deeper meaning to their parents' ears 
as they raise their hearts to God, and re- 
member, " Thou compassest my path ; " 
" Thou knowest my way ; " " Though I 
walk through the midst of trouble Thou 
wilt revive me." 

"Within Thy circling power I stand. 
On every side I find Thine hand; 
Awake, asleep, at home, abroad, 
I am surrounded still by God." 



And when strength fails, and a dear 
child is languishing into another life be- 
yond the grave, who can tend the dying 
bed Hke a mother ? In whom is there so 
much trust as in a father's love? Talk 
about duty to children, there is no pleas- 
ure sweeter than that of training them up 
in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord, repaid as it is by their fervent friend- 
ship in after-life, and the hope of present- 
ing them washed in a Saviour's blood and 
faultless before the great w^hite throne at 
the last day. — Mother's Treasury, 



TO MY MOTHER. 

AND canst thou, mother, for a moment 
think 
That we, thy children, when old age 
shall shed 
Its blanching honors on thy weary head, 
Could from our best of duties ever shrink ? 
Sooner the sun from his high sphere should 
sink, 
Than we, ungrateful, leave thee in that day, 
To pine in solitude thy life away, 
Or shun thee, tottering on the grave's cold 

brink. 
Banish the thought ! — where'er our steps may 
roam. 
O'er smiling plains, or wastes without a tree. 
Still will fond memory point our hearts to 
thee. 
And paint the pleasures of thy peaceful home; 
While duty bids us all thy griefs assuage, 
And smooth the pillow of thy sinking age. 

HENRY KIRKE WHITE. 



IVCOTHER. 



[HEN we are sick, where can we turn for 
succor. 
When we are wretched, where can we 
complain ? 
And when the world looks cold and surly on 

us, 
Where can we go to meet a warmer eye 
With such sure confidence as to a mother ? 

JOANNA BAILLIE. 



166 



,^__ PARENTAL AUTHORITY. !| ^.,^ 




HE very height of 
human wickedness is 
described in the Holy 
Book as "lawless- 
ness." Subjection to 
the holy, just, and 
good law of the Most 
High God is the essen- 
tial condition of well- 
being here, and the 
essential element of 
glory hereafter. In keeping with this, 
human beings come into this world in a 
state of dependence and subjection, and for 
about one-half of the average term of 
human life that is their proper and natural 
state. 

I cannot doubt that the great idea of 
the long pupilage of man is just that the 
principle and habit of obedience, of sub- 
mission to authority, may be wrought into 
his inmost nature — that, taught to obey 
an earthly parent, even from infancy, he 
may pass from subjection to the heavenly 
one. Reverent obedience of the child to 
parents is the preparation for reverent 
obedience of the man to God. The one is 
the stepping-stone to the other. It is asked 
in the Epistle of John, " If a man love 
not his brother whom he hath seen, how 
can he love God whom he hath not seen ? " 
In the same spirit and with at least equal 
emphasis it may be asked, " If a child 
honor not the father whom he hath ^seen, 
how shall he honor his Father whom he 
hath not seen?" There is rebellion 
against God in our inmost nature. Well, 
train up a child in willfulness and insub- 
ordination, and what must you expect as 
the result of nature's tendencies and such 
a training commingled. 

1 



Law is eveiy where here. There is law 
in the Bible. There is law in our souls. 
There are laws written with a pen of iron 
upon our bodily frames. There are laws 
upon earth and sky — and to send forth 
from your home a lawless creature, is to 
send forth a blind man to walk among 
pitfalls and precipices, to offer up an 
immortal nature to the god of misrule. 

In a religious point of view it seems 
to me just of the last importance that the 
parent should exercise over his children a 
sovereign authority. There must be no 
permitted resistance to his will. Obedi- 
ence must be the primary law of the 
family. Does this have a sound of harsh- 
ness ? But it is the Bible way! The 
confidence in regard to Abraham was that 
he would command his children after him. 
Children are bidden by the apostle to 
obey their parents. It is the essen- 
tial requisite of a ruler in God's house 
that he should be able to rule in his own 
house, having his children in subjection. 
And authority is not tyranny. As the 
authority of God is not tyranny, neither 
is the authority of a parent, rightly used. 
If it is rightly used, it will be used under 
the feeling of tender love and affectionate 
interest. The children themselves will 
more and more come to feel that ; and 
feeling it, to render a willing and cheer- 
ful obedience to it. We parents should 
rule in love — in Christian love — but wb 

SHOULD RULE. 

Parental authority, like all authority, 
needs a wise hand to wield it. There is 
needed especially great wisdom in the 
exercise of it, when the boy is passing 
into the man. At that stage of human 
life when you have the feeling of inde- 
G7 



PARENTAL AUTHORITY. 



pendence beginning to come — when you 
have so often the passions of manhood to 
deal with without manhood's checks and 
sense — ^no one can tell what the blessing 
is of having, say, a father to whom a son 
has been in the habit of looking with sub- 
missive reverence, and who has the wisdom 
to use his influence aright. 

But altogether, we may depend on it 
that there is nothing more ruinous than 
disobedience allowed in our little ones. 
I may even venture to say, that it is great 
cruelty and great sin in us to permit it, 
out of, it may be, an indolent easiness of 
mind, or an unwise softness of disposition. 
The parent is to rule a home, the world 
of childhood, as the Great Parent rules in 
the world^ the home of manhood. 

mothers' treasury. 

A MOTHER'S LOVE, 

HAST thou sounded the depths of . yon- 
der sea 
And counted the sands that under it 
be? 
Hast thou measured the height of heaven 

above ? 
Then mayst thou mete out a mother's love. 

Hast thou talk'd with the bless'd of leading 
on 

To the throne of God some wandering son? 

Hast thou witness'd the angels' bright em- 
ploy? 

Then mayst thou speak of a mother's joy. 

Evening and Morn hast thou watch'd the bee 
Go forth on her errand of industry ? 
The bee for himself hath gather'd and toil'd, 
But the mother's cares are all for her child. 

Hast thou gone with the traveller Thought 

afar — 
From pole to pole, and from star to star ? 
Thou hast — but on ocean, earth, and sea, 
The heart of a mother has gone with thee. 

There is not a grand, inspiring thought, 
There is not a truth by wisdom taught, 
There is not a feeling pure and high, 
That may not be read in a mother's eye. 



And ever, since Earth began, that look 
Has been to the wise an open book, 
To win them back from the lore they prize 
To the holier love that edifies. 

There are teachings in earth, and sea, and 

air; 
The heavens the glory of God declare; 
But louder than voice beneath or above, 
He is heard to speak through a mother's love. 

EMILY TAYLOR. 






THE FATHER'S DUTY. 

iHE father who plunges into business 
I so deeply that he has no leisure for 
JL domestic duties and pleasures, and 
whose only intercourse with his chil- 
dren consists in a brief word of authority, 
or a surly lamentation over their intoler- 
able expensiveness, is equally to be pitied 
and to be blamed. 

What right has he to devote to other 
pursuits the time which God has allotted 
to his children ? Nor is it an excuse to 
say that he cannot support his family in 
their present style of living without this 
effort. I ask by what right can his fam- 
ily demand to live in a manner which 
requires him to neglect his most solemn 
and important duties ? Nor is it an excuse 
to say that he wishes to leave them a com- 
petence. Is he under obligation to leave 
them that competence which he desires? 
Is it an advantage to be relieved from the 
necessity of labor? Besides, is money the 
only desirable bequest which a father can 
leave to his children? 

Surely, well cultivated intellects, hearts 
sensible to domestic affection, the love of 
parents, and brethern, and sisters, a taste 
for home pleasures, habits of order, regu- 
larity and industry, hatred of vice and 
vicious men, and a lively sensibility to 
the excellence of virtue are as valuable a 
legacy as an inheritance of property — sim- 
ple property purchased by the loss of 
every habit which would render that prop- 
erty a blessing. 

DR. FRANCIS WAYLAND. 



168 



A WORD WITH PARENTS ABOUT THEIR CHILDREN. 




HAT pride is felt by 
fC parents in the honest 
/^ success of their boys. 
)^- How thev like to hear 



of his good and man- 
ly behavior in school, 
in th e counting- 
house, or on deck, 
where lives are to be 
saved or liberty pre- 
served I That parent has lived to some 
purpose who has his children rooted and 
grounded in sound principles. Equipping 
well the son or daughter for the voyage of 
life, is a duty the neglect of which is sure to 
entail sorrow and shame. When a min- 
ister's boy goes wrong, the whole world is 
informed of the fact with apparent glee, 
by those who have no taste for things reli- 
gious. It is clearly expected, then, that 
the minister's family, like himself, should 
be living epistles, known and read of all 
men. Then again, when the son or 
daughter of a religious family mingles 
freely with worldlings, in the ball-room 
and at the theater, the finger of reproach 
is justly pointed at Christ's followers, and 
the majority are held responsible for the 
acts or neglects of a few. Religion and 
science unite in positive language, that the 
defects of the parents are discoverable in 
the children. 

The only cure for this disorder — what- 
ever it may be — is the grace of God, the 
love and friendship of Jesus. The 
parent, then — father or mother — who is 
conscious of dangerous personal proclivi- 
ties, occupies vantage ground above every 
other teacher, however qualified, in deal- 
ing with his child. He knows the beset- 
ting sin, and with heaven's aid, can over- 
come it. Those parents who leave the 
education of their children almost alto- 
gether to the sacred or secular teacher, 



have intrusted the most important busi- 
ness of life to hands not fully competent 
to discharge it. The good housewife be- 
stows much care upon the curtains, the 
carpets, the pictures, and the statuary 
within the home; while the sons and 
daughters, with bad books, impure asso- 
ciates, and misleading plays, are gradu- 
ally drifting, if not already there, on to 
dangerous ground. It is proper to remind 
these drowsy parents that stains on pic- 
tures and dirt on curtains are minor evils, 
unjustifiable as they are, compared with 
the unmanly act of the boy or the frivo- 
lous amusements of the daughter. We 
are safe in assuming that the parents of 
Joseph, Samuel, and Timothy, were of 
superior stock. Grace makes magnificent 
pictures when it lodges in good, natural 
soil, in which there are, as we are taught, 
various degrees. Parents who expect 
noble children must themselves lead noble 
lives. In time, and the sooner the better, 
we will attach more value to the law of 
heredity. We will then try to do much 
for posterity by bequeathing blood and 
habits that will help and not hinder the 
race. 

Nice families! What a comfort and 
ornament they are to society ! There are 
pleasant homes with the poets and others 
with orators, but the greatest joy is even- 
ing at home with cultured people who 
know much of Divine things, whose lives 
are attuned to words that cheer and deeds 
that ennoble. You are sure to find in 
such homes grandmotherly and motherly 
influence modeled after that which made 
Timothy an example for all the ages. We 
are not doing enough in the right direction 
for our children. If we would have more 
fragrance and fruit we must prune and 
pray, beginning within and working out- 
ward. 



169 



# 



-p^ 



X 



5, MOTHER'S EMPIRE. ^ 

\ if 



«--^ 



■qJ^O 




I HE queen that sits iipon the throne 

of home, crowned and sceptred as 

none other ever can be, is — mother. 

Her enthronement is complete, her 

reign unrivalled, and the moral issues of 

her empire are eternal. " Her children 

arise up, and call her blessed." 

Rebellious, at times, as the subjects of 
her government may be, she rules them 
with marvelous patience, winning tender- 
ness and undying love. She so presents 
and exemplifies divine truth, that it re-pro- 
duces itself in the happiest development 
of childhood — character and life. 

Her memory is sacred while she lives, 
and becomes a perpetual inspiration, even 
when the bright flowers bloom above her 
sleeping dust. She is an incarnation of 
goodness to the child, and hence her im- 
mense power. Scotland, with her well- 
known reverence for motherhood, insists 
that " An ounce of mother is worth more 
than a pound of clergy." 

Napoleon cherished a high conception 
of a mother's power, and believed that the 
mothers of the land could shape the des- 
tinies of his beloved France. Hence he 
said in his sententious,. laconic style : "The 
great need of France is mothers." 

The ancient orator bestowed a flattering 
compliment upon the homes of Roman 
mothers when he said, "The empire is at 
the fireside." Who can think of the in- 
fluence that a mother wields in the home, 
and not be impressed with its far-reaching 
results ! What revolutions would take 
place in our families and communities if 
that strange, magnetic power were fully 
consecrated to the welfare of the child and 
the glory of God. 

Mohammed expressed a great truth 
when he said that " Paradise is at the feet 
of mothers." 



There is one vision that never fades from 
the soul, and that is the vision of mother 
and of home. No man in all his weary 
wanderings ever goes out beyoiid the over- 
shadowing arch of home. 

Let him stand on the surf-beaten coast 
of the Atlantic, or roam over western 
wilds, and every dash of the wave and 
murmur of the breeze will whisper /lome^ 
sweet home. 

Set him down amid the glaciers of the 
North, and even there thoughts of home, 
too warm to be chilled by the eternal 
frosts, will float in upon him. 

Let him rove through the green, waving 
groves, and over the sunny slopes of the 
South, and in the smile of the soft skies, 
and in the kiss of the balmy breeze, home 
will live again. 

John Randolph was once heard to say 
that only one thing saved him from 
atheism, and that was the tender remem- 
brance of the hour when a devout mother, 
kneeling by his side, took his little hand 
in hers, and taught him to say "Our 
Father, who art in Heaven." 

God hasten the time when our families, 
everywhere, shall catch the cry of child- 
hood as it swells up over all the land, like 
the voice of God's own sweet evangel, 
calling the /lome — the home to enter the 
children's temple, and crowd its altars 
with the best offerings of sympathy and 
service. 

Fathers, mothers, let the home go with 
your children to Jesus, — let it go with 
them at every step, to cheer them in every 
struggle, until from the very crest of the 
cold wave that bears them from you for- 
ever, they shout back their joy over a 
home on earth, that helped them rise to a 
home in Heaven. 



RKV. H. H. BIRKINS. 



170 



■^ 



A COURTEOUS MOTHER- 



?,'T>o 




G-'(sV(i>-'^0^^\^cN'' 






URING the 

whole of one of 
last summer's 
hottest days, I 
had the good 
fortune to be 
seated in a rail- 
way car near a 
mother and 
'> four children, 
^ whose relations 
with each other 
were so beauti- 
ful that the 
pleasure of watching them was quite 
enough to make one forget the discomforts 
of the journey. It was plain that they 
were poor ; their clothes were coarse and 
old, and had been made by inexperienced 
hands. The mother's bonnet alone 
would have been enough to have con- 
demned the whole party on any of the 
world's thoroughfares ; but her face was 
one which gave you a sense of rest to look 
upon — it was so earnest, tender, true, and 
strong. The children — two boys and two 
girls — were all under the age of twelve, 
and the youngest could not speak plainly. 
They had had a rare treat. They had 
been visiting the mountains, and they 
were talking over all the wonders they 
had seen with a glow of enthusiastic 
delight which was to be envied. In the 
course of the day, there were many occa- 
sions when it was necessary for her to 
deny requests, and to ask services, 
especially from the oldest boy ; but no 
young girl, anxious to ])lease a lover, 
could have done either with a more ten- 
der courtesy. She had her reward ; for 
no lover could have been more tender 



and manly than was this boy of tweh^a 
Their lunch was simple and scanty j 
but it had the graces of a royal banquet. 
At the last the mother produced three 
apples and an orange, of which the 
children had not known. All eyes fas- 
tened on the orange. It was evidently a 
great rarity. I watched to see if this test 
would bring out selfishness. There was 
a little silence — just the shade of a cloud. 
The mother said : " How shall I divide 
this ? There is one for each of you ; and 
I shall be the best off of all, for I expect 
big tastes from each." " Oh, give Annie 
the orange ; Annie loves oranges," spoke 
out the oldest boy, with the sudden air of 
a conqueror, at the same time taking the 
smallest and worst apple himself. " Oh, 
yes, let Annie have the orange," echoed 
the second boy, nine years old, "Yes, 
Annie may have the orange, because that 
is nicer than the apples, and she is a lady, 
and her brothers are gentlemen," said the 
mother, quietly. 

Then there was a merry contest as to 
who should feed the mother \vith the 
largest and most frequent mouthfuls. 
Annie pretended to want apple, and 
exchanged thin, golden strips of orange for 
bites out of the cheeks of Baldwins. As 
I sat watching her intently, she sprang 
over to me saying : " Don't you want a 
taste, too?" The mother smiled under- 
standingly, when I said : " No, I thank 
you, you dear, generous little girl ; I don't 
care about oranges." 

At noon we had a tedious interval of 
waiting at a dreary station. AVe sat for 
two hours on a narrow platform, which 
the sun had scorched till it smelt of heat. 
The oldest boy held the youngest child, 



171 



A COURTEOUS MOTHER. 



and talked to her, while the tired mother 
closed her eyes aud rested. The two 
other children were toiling up and down 
the banks of the railroad track picking 
ox-eye daisies, buttercups and sorrel. 
They worked like beavers, and soon the 
bunches were almost too big for their 
little hands. Then they came running to 
give them to their mother. " Oh, dear,^^ 
thought I, ^^ how that poor, tired woman 
will hate to open her eyes ! She never 
can take those great bunches of common, 
fading flowers, in addition to all her 
bundles and bags." I was mistaken. 
" Oh, thank you my darlings ! How 
kind you are ! Poor, hot, tired little 
flowers — how thirsty they look ! If they 
will only keep alive till we get home, we 
will make them very happy in some water, 
won't we ? And you shall put one bunch 
by papa's plate and one by mme." 

She took great trouble to get a string 
and tie up the flowers ; and then the train 
came, and we were whirling along again. 
Soon it grew dark, and little Annie's head 
nodded. Then I heard the mother say 
to the oldest boy : " Dear, are you too 
tired to let little Annie put her head on 
your shoulder and take a nap ? AVe shall 
get her home in much better case to see 
papa, if we can manage to give her a little 
sleep." How many boys of twelve hear 
such words as these from tired, overbur- 
dened mothers ? Soon came the city, the 
final station, with its bustle and noise. I 
lingered to watch my happy family, 
hoping to see the father. " ^Vhy, papa 
isn't here ! " exclaimed one disappointed 
voice after another. " Xever mind," said 
the mother, with a still deeper disappoint- 
ment in her tone ; " perhaps he had to go 
to see some poor body who is sick," 

In the hurry of picking up all the par- 
cels, the poor daisies and buttercups were 
left forgotten in a corner of the rack. I 



wondered if the mother had not intended 
this. May I be forgiven for the injustice ! 
A few minutes after I passed the 
little group, standing still, just outside 
the station,' and heard the mother say : 
" Oh, my darlings, I have forgotten your 
pretty flowers. I am so sorry ! I won- 
der if I could find them, if I went back. 
AYill you all stand still and not stir from 
this spot, if I go ? " " Oh, mamma, don't 
go, don't go. AVe will get you some 
more. Don't go," cried all the children. 
'• Here are your flowers, madam," said I. 
" I saAV that you had forgotten them, and 
I took them as mementoes of you and your 
sweet children." She blushed and looked 
disconcerted. She was evidently unused 
to people, and shy with all but her child- 
ren. However, she thanked me sweetly, 
and said : " I was very sorry about them. 
The children took so much trouble to get 
them ; and I think they will reviA^e in 
water. They cannot be quite dead." 
^' They will never die ! " said I, with an 
emphasis which went from my heart to 
hers. Then all her shyness fled. She 
knew me ; and Ave shook hands, and 
smiled into each other's eyes with the 
smile of kindred as we parted. 

As I followed on, I heard the two 
children, who were walking behind, say- 
ing to each other : *^ A\"ouldn't that have 
been too bad ? Mamma liked them so 
much, and we never could have got so 
many all at once again." " Yes, we could, 
too, next summer," said the boy, sturdily. 
They are sure of their " next summers," 
I think, all six of those souls — children, 
and mother, and father. They may never 
again gather so many daisies and butter- 
cups " all at once." Perhaps some of the 
little hands have already picked their last 
flowers. Nevertheless, their summers are 
certain. Heaven bless them all, wherever 
they are ! helen hunt. 



172 




THE MOTHER'S SORROW. 




■e^ 



•j-s>- 




S the waters roll in on 
the shore with inces- 
sant throbs, night 
and day, and always, 
— not alone when 
storms prevail, but 
in calms as well, — so it is with a mother's 
heart bereaved of her children. There is 
no grief like unto it, — Rachel weeping for 
her children, and refusing to be comforted, 
because they are not ! With what long 
patience and suflPering, does the mother 
wait until the child of her hope is placed 
in her arms and under the sight of her 
eyes! She remembereth no more the 
anguish, for joy that a man is born into 
the world. 

Who can read, or, if he saw, could utter 
the thoughts of a mother during all the 
days and nights in which she broods the 
helpless thing? Every true mother takes 
home the full meaning of angel's word; 
that holy thing which shall be born of 
thee shall be called the Son of God. The 
mother does not even whisper what she 
thinks, and the whole air is full of gentle 
pictures, every one on the background of 
the blue heavens. 

The child grows, — grows in favor of 
God and man ; and every admiring look 
cast upon it, even by a stranger, sends 
light and gladness to the mother's heart. 
Wonderful child ! The sun is brighter 
for it ! The whole earth is blessed by 
its presence I Sorrows, pains, weariness, 
self-denials, for its sake, are eagerly sought 
and delighted in. 

But the days come when the little feet 
are weary; when tlie night brings no 
rest ; when the cheek is scarlet, the eye 



changed, and the smile no longer knows 
how to shine. All day, all night, it is 
the mother's watch. Her very sleep is 
but a veiled waking. Joy ; the child is 
coming back to health ! Woe ; it is 
drifting out again, away from con- 
sciousness and pain. It is far, far 
out toward — toward darkness. It dis- 
appears ! 

The mother's heart was like a heaven 
while it lived ; now it has ascended to 
God's heaven, and the mother's heart is as 
the gloom of midnight. Wild words of 
self-reproach at length break out, as when 
a frozen torrent is set loose by spring 
days. She that has lavished her life-force 
upon the child turns upon herself with 
fierce charges of carelessness, of thought- 
lessness. She sees a hundred ways in 
which the child would have lived but for 
her ! All love is turned into self-crimin- 
ation. Tears come at length to quench the 
fire of purgatory. But grief takes new 
shapes every hour, till the nerve has lost 
its sensibility, and then she coldly hates 
her unnatural and inhuman heart that 
will not feel. 

A child dying, dies but once ; but the 
mother dies a hundred times. When the 
sharpness is over, and the dulhicss of an 
overspent brain is past, and she must take 
up the shuttle again, and weave the web 
of daily life, pity her not that she must 
work, must join again the discordant 
voices, and be forced to duties irksome 
and hateful. These all are kindly med- 
icines. A new thought is slowly prepar- 
ing. It is that immovable constancy and 
strength which sorrow gives when it has 
wrought the Divine intent. 



173 



PATIENCE, MOTHER. 



PATIENCE, mother ; don't be vreary 
Of the restless little head 
Xow reclining on your bosom, 
Sleeping now on cradle-bed. 
Should the little head grow weary, 

Sinking to a dreamless sleep, 
Besting on a coffin pillow, 

Then, oh mother, how you'd weep, — 
Weep to think you'd been im^Datient, 

And perhaps a bit unkind, 
To the darling little baby 
That had left you thus behind. 

Patience, mother ; don't be weary 

Of the clinging finger-tips 
Creeping round like tiny tendrils, 

iSTor the rosy, parted lips. 
Should the lips be pale and silent. 

Little hands be folded still. 
Glad would mother be to have them 

Clinging at their own sweet ^'ill ; 
For how very nmch you'd missed them, 

None but mother's heart can say. 
Rosy lips, how glad j'ou'd kiss them — 

Clinging fingers, feel them play. 

Patience, mother ; don't be weary 

Of the baby prattle sweet, 
Of the steady jjatter, patter, 

Of the ever busy feet. 
Should the tiny feet grow weary, 

And the merry prattle cease ; 
Should they both be stilled forever. 

In a never-ending peace. 
Vainly then would mother listen 

For a sound e'en half so sweet 
As the cooii^g of an infant 

And the j.oise of baby feet. 

Patience, mother; don't be weary 

Of bright eyes so wide-awake, — 
Bright eyes full of love and latighter; 

Sunshine in your home they make. 
Should the sparkling eyes grow weary, 

Close, no more to ope on you, 
To wake no more with glad surprise. 

Then what, mother, would you do ? 
Oh, gladly then you'd see their light, 

Nor would wish they'd ** go to sleep 
In vain the thought, unheeded wish, 

They can never wake nor weep. 

Patience, mother ; don't be weary 
Of the loving little heart, 



Clinging ever to its mother, 

Fearing with her care to part. 
Should the little heart grow weary. 

Seek a Saviour's heavenly fold, 
There, forever, with the angels 

Shielded from the storm and cold, 
Mother, you would weep with sorrow. 

Thinking you had caused it pain. 
Patient be, then, while they're with you 

Then you'll ne'er "regret in vain." 

LIZZIE UNDERWOOD. 



A MOTHER'S CARES. 

^ DO not think that I could bear 

^ My daily weight of woman's care 

If it were not for this. 
That Jesus seemeth alwaj's near : 
Unseen, but whispering in my ear. 
Some tender word of love and cheer. 
To fill my soul with bliss ! 

There are so many trivial cares 

That no one knows and no one shares. 

Too small for me to tell ; 
Things e'en my husband can not see ; 
Xor his dear love uplift from me 
Each hour's unnamed perplexity. 

That mothers know so well. 

The failure of some household scheme, 
The ending of some pleasant dream. 

Deep hidden in my breast ; 
The weariness of children's noise, 
The yearning for that subtle poise 
That turneth duties into joys. 

And giveth inner rest. 

These secret things, however small, 
Are known to Jesus, each and all, 

And this thought brings me peace. 
I do not need to say one word ; 
He knows what thought my heart hath stirred. 
And by divine caress my Lord 

Maizes all its throbbing cease. 

And then upon His lo\'ing breast 
» My weary head is laid at rest, 
In speechless ecstasy ! 
Until it seemeth all in vain 
That care, fatigue, or mortal pain 
Should hope to drive me forth again 
From such felicity ! 
174 



^MOTHERS AND SONS.:|^ 




^±^10^ 



OSTboysgo 
through 
a period, 
when they 
have great 
need of pa- 
tient love 
at home. 
They are 
awkward 
and clumsy, sometimes strangely willful 
and perverse, and they are desperately con- 
scious of themselves, and very sensitive 
to the least word of censure or effort at 
restraint. Authority frets them. They 
are leaving childhood, but they have not 
yet reached the sober good sense of man- 
hood. They are an easy prey to the 
tempter and the sophist. Perhaps they 
adopt skeptical views, from sheer desire 
to prove that they are independent, and 
can do their own thinking. Now is the 
mother's hour. Her boy needs her now 
more than when he lay in his cradle. Her 
finer insight and serener faith may hold 
him fast, and prevent his drifting into 
dangerous courses. At all events there is 
very much that only a mother can do for 
her son, and that a son can receive only 
from his mother, in the critical period of 
which we are thinking. It is well for him, 
if she have kept the freshness and bright- 
ness of her youth, so that she can now be 
his companion and friend as well as men- 
tor. It is a good thing for a boy to be 
proud of liis mother ; to feel complacent 
when he introduces her to his comrades, 
knowing that they cannot help seeing 
what a pretty woman she is, so graceful, 
winsome, and attractive ! There is always 
hope for a boy when he admires his 
mother, and mothers should care to be 
admirable in the eyes of their sons. Not 
merely to possess characters wliich are 
worthy of respect, but to be beautiful and 



charming, so far as they can, in person 
and appearance. The neat dress, the be- 
coming ribbon, and smooth hair are all 
worth thinking about, when regarded as 
means of retaining influence over a soul, 
when the world is spreading lures for it on 
every side. 

Above all things, mothers need faith. 
Genuine, hearty, loving trust in God, a life 
of meek, glad acquiescence in His will, 
lived daily through years in the presence 
of sons, is an immense power. They never 
can get away from the sweet memory that 
Christ was their mother's friend. There 
is a reality in that which no false reason- 
ing can persuade them to regard as a fig- 
ment of the imagination. — Christian In- 
telligencer, 

A MOTHER'S HEART. 

A LITTLE dreaming, such as mothers 
know ; 
A little lingering over dainty 
things ; 
A happy heart, wherein love all aglow 

Stirs like a bird at dawn that wakes and 
sings — 

And that is all. 

A little clasping to her yearning breast ; 

A little musing over future years ; 
A heart that prays, "Dear Lord, Thou know- 
est best, 
But spare my flower life's bitterest rain of 
tears" — 

And that is all. 

A little spirit speeding through the night; 

A little home grown lonely, dark, and chill , 
A sad heart, groping blindly for the light ; 

A little snow-clad grave beneath the hill — 
And that is all. 

A little gathering of life's broken thread ; 

A little patience keeping back the tears ; 
A heart that sings, " Thy darling is not dead, 
God keeps her safe through His eternal 
years" — 

And that is all. 



175 




AEENTS lean 
upon their chil- 
dren, and especial- 
ly their sons, much 
earlier than either 
of them imagine. 
Their love is a con- 
stant inspiration, a perennial fountain of 
delight, from which other lips may quaff, 
and be comforted thereby. It may be 
that the mother has been left a widow, 
depending on her only son for support. 
He gives her a comfortable home, sees 
that she is well clad, and allows no debts 
to accumulate, and that is all. It is con- 
siderable, more even than many sons do, 
but there is a lack. He seldom thinks it 
worth while to give her a caress ; he has 
forgotten all those affectionate ways that 
kept the wrinkles from her face, and make 
her look so much younger than her years; 
he is ready to put his hand in his pocket 
to gratify her slightest request, but to give 
of the abundance of his heart is another 
thing entirely. He loves his mother? 
Of course he does ! Are there not proofs 
enough of his filial regard ? Is he not 
continually making sacrifices for her ben- 
efit? What more could any reasonable 
woman ask ? 

Ah, but it is the mother-heart that 
craves an occasional kiss, the support of 
your youthful arm, the little attentions 
and kindly courtesies of life, that smooth 
down so many of its asperities, and make 
the journey less wearisome. Material aid 
is good so far as it goes, but it has not 
that sustaining power which the loving, 
sympathetic heart bestows upon its object. 
You think she has out-grown these weak- 
nesses and follies, and is content with the 
crust that is left ; but you are mistaken. 



Every little offer of attention,- — your 
escort to church or concert, or for a quiet 
walk, brings back the youth of her heart ; 
her cheeks glow, and her eyes sparkle 
with pleasure, and oh ! how proud she is 
of her son ! 

Even the father, occupied and absorbed 
as he may be, is not wholly indifferent to 
these filial expressions of devoted love. 
He may pretend to care very little for 
them, but having faith in their sincerity, 
it would give him serious pain were they 
entirely withheld. Fathers need their 
sons quite as much as the sons need the 
fathers, but in how many deplorable in- 
stances do they fail to find in them a staff 
for their declining years ! 

My son, are you a sweetener of life ? 
You may disappoint the ambition of your 
parents; may be unable to distinguish 
yourself as they fondly hoped ; may find 
your intellectual strength inadequate to 
your own desires, but let none of these 
things move you from a determination to 
be a son of whose moral character they 
need never be ashamed. Begin early to 
cultivate a habit of thoughtfulness and 
consideration for others, especially for those 
whom you are commanded to honor. Can 
you begrudge a few extra steps for the 
mother who never stopped to number 
those you demanded during your helpless 
infancy ? Have you the heart to slight her 
requests, or treat her remarks with indif- 
ference, when you cannot begin to meas- 
ure the patient devotion with which she 
bore with your peculiarities ? Anticipate 
her wajats, invite her confidence, be prompt 
to offer assistance, express your affections J 
as heartily as you did when a child, that i 
the mother may never grieve in secret for 
the son she has lost. s. s. times. 



176 



^ 



%^-^ 




J. 



1 



\ 



QUEEX OF ROSES. 



FRIENDSHIP AND MEMORIES. 




E I E K D - 

j^ SHIP is one 
of the great- 
est boons 
God can be- 
stow on man. 
It is a union 
of our fine&t 
feelings ; a n 
uninterested 
binding of 
hearts, and a 
sympathy be- 
tween two souls. It 
is an indefinable 
trust we repose in 
one another, a con- 
stant communica- 
tion between two 
minds, and an un- 
remitting anxiety for each other's souls. 
What, then, is the root, the cause, of 
friendship? Sympatliy. Sympathy con- 
ceives friendship ; fiiendship, love. Love 



the Almighty's goodness and power, and 
knowledge of his injunctions to the rights 
ecus, and the reward they may expect here- 
after, it spreads around, everywhere, joy 
and happiness, causing not only fresh 
unions, but, with praiseworthy Christian 
exertion and love, rendering them inflex- 
ible. J. HILL. 




C0MMUN30N OF SOULS. 

JYSTICAL, more than magical, is 
that communing of soul with soul, 
both looking heavenward: here 
properly soul first speaks with 
soul ; for only in looking heavenward, 
take it in what sense you may, not in 
looking earthward, does what we can call 
union, mutual love, society, begin to be 
possible. How true is that of Kovalis: 
" It is certain, my belief gains quite infi- 
nitely the moment I can convince another 
mind thereof ! " Gaze thou in the fiice of 



is friendship. Tlie tree that bears love, thy brother, in those eyes where plays the 



bears also friendship. Where friendship 
exists between two persons, there is also 
always, hope ; in adversity there is always 
a support, a refuge, a knowledge of there 
still remaining some succor ; and as a babe 
cries for its mother for nourishment, so do 



ambent fire of kindness, or in those where 
rages the lurid conflagration of anger; 
feel how thy own so quiet soul is straight- 
way involuntarily kindled with the like, 
and ve blaze and reverberate on each other, 
till it is all one limitless confluent flame 



we in adversity run to friendship for advice, (of embracing love, or of deadly-grappling 

fully relying on some means by which it hate) ; and then say what miraculous vir- 

may release us from the troubles of the tue goes out of man into man. But if so, 

world. And in true friendship there is through all the thick-plied hulls of our 

cultivated such a love of God, such a earthly life; how much more when it is 

devotionfor the Creator of the world, that of the divine life we speak, and inmost 

the chains become adamant. Friendship me is, as it were, brought into contact with 

*\aving thus a righteous appreciation of inmost me.' thomas carlyle. 

130 177 



.^^§=- NlKVtORIHS. ^^^ 



^'f OW, dame, the morn doth promise fair, 
2\j 'Tis kind and genial weather, 
- i So prithee quit that eas}^ chair, 

And let us forth together. 
The merry mouth of Juue is 
here, 
Adorning brier ar.d bramble; 
Come slip your bonnet on, my 
dear, 
And join me in a ramble. 

I well recall that happy day 

When through the green 
lanes straying, 
I met a little maiden gay 

And went \\ ith her a-mayi 



She was but ten, and I no more. 
Her cheeks were round and rosy. 

And in her white-bibbed pinafore. 
She wore a pretty posy. 




She tripped so daintily along, 

And prattled on so cheerly, 
I heeded not the skylark s song, 

Although I loved that dearly. 
There w^as a music in her voice, 

So witching, so entrancing 
It made my inmost heart rej oice, 

And set my pulses dancing. 



MEMORIES. 



Obedient to her commands, 

I dctred the thorniest hedges, 
And scratched and tore my face and hands 

In ( 'inilmi'j: I'miks and Icducs, 



At last we reached a quiet nook 

(Beside a hazel cover 
And watered by a babbling brook) 
\\\\\\ blossoms sprinkled over 
^ -- I In such profusion and so rare, 
Our souls were filled with 
pleasure ; 
Departing Spring had emptied 
there 
Her lap of half its treasure. 

And here wo gathered at our will 
The rarest flowers a-blowing, 

And gold and silver heaped until 
'Twas time we should be going. 

Then, as ^^ e bo' e our a\ ealth away. 




To win a spray of hawthorn 

bloom — 

Nor deemed the task a labor— 

Or cull some flower whose 

sweet perfume 

Endeared it to my neighbor. 



MEMORIES. 



We chanted to the wild wood, 
As I remember, many a lay 
Dear to the heart of childhood. 

Since then, dear dame — there, do not sigh- 

We've lived and loved together 
For threescore years, or ver}^ nigh, 

Enjoying feirish weather. 
Now travelling down the vale of life, 

^^e've little cause for sorroAv — 
A. happy husband, happy wife. 

With trust in our to-morrow. 



D 



^Miv 



DREAMS AND REALITIES. 

ROSAMOKD, thou fair and good 
And perfect flower of womanhood ! 

Thou royal rose of June ! 
Why didst thou droop before thy 
time ? 
wither in the first sweet prime ? 



Why didst thou die so soon ? 

For, looking backward through my tears 
On thee, and on my wasted years, 

I cannot choose but sa}', 
If thou hadst lived to be my guide, 
Or thou hadst lived and I had died, 

T were better far to-day. 

child of light, golden head ! — 
Bright sunbeam for one moment shed 

Upon life's lonely Avay, — 
Why didst thou vanish from our sight? 
Could they not spare my little light 

From heaven's unclouded day? 

friend so true, O friend so good !-^ 
Thou one dream of my maidenhood. 

That gave youth all its charms, — 
What had I done, or what hadst thou, 
That, through this lonesome world till now, 

We walk with empty arms ? 

And yet had this poor soul been fed 
With all it loved and coveted ; 

Had life been always fair, 
Would these dear dreams that ne'er depart, 
That thrill witkWiss my inmost heart, 

Forever tremble there ? 

If ?tiri they kept their earthly place. 
The friends 1 held in my embrace, 

And gave to death, alas ! 
Could 1 have learned that clear, calm faith 



That looks beyond the bonds of death, 
A.nd almost longs to pass ? 

Sometimes, I think, the things we see 
Are shadows of the things to be ; 

Tha* what we plan we build ; 
That every hope that hath been crossed, 
And every dream we thought was lost. 

In heaven shall be fulfilled ; 

That even the children of the brain 
Have not been born and died in vain. 

Though here unclothed and dumb; 
But on some brighter, better shore 
They live, embodied evermore, 

And wait for us to come. 

And when on that last day we rise, 
Caught up between the earth and skies, 

Then shall we hear our Lord 
Say, Thou hast done with doubt and death, 
Henceforth, according to thy faith. 

Shall be thy faith's reward. 

PHCEBE GARY. 



THE PASSAGE. 

m^AXY a year is in its grave, 

Since I crossed this restless wave; 
And the evening, fair as ever. 
Shines on ruin, rock, and river. 

Then in this same boat beside 
Sat two comrades old and tried — 
One with all a father's truth, 
One with all the fire of Aoutli. 

One on earth in silence wrought. 
And his grave in silence sought; 
But the younger, brighter form 
Passed in battle and in storm. 

So, whene'er I turn my eye 

Back upon the days gone by. 

Saddening thoughts of friends come o'er me 

Friends that closed their course before me. 

But what binds us, friend to friend. 
But that soul with soul can blend ? 
Soul-like Avere those hours of yore; 
Let us walk in soul once more. 

Take, O boatman, thrice thy lee, — 

Take, I give it willingly; 

For, invisible to thee, 

Sx^irits twain have crossed with me. 

LUDWiG u HLAKD. (German.) 



180 



«=: 



3 DEPARTED DAYS. 



C{ CJMMER'S sweet breath, and winter's wind, 
\ Have swept the landscape since I stood 
M And watch'd the ebbing of the flood, 
And knew the anguish of a mind 

That in wild ebb and flow was tost, 
When, as the leaves of autumn fell, 



When all the music overhead 
Was but the echo of our own. 

Proud loom the distant towers ; the mocu 
Sheds its pale splendors over all ; 
While night, with tender, noiseless pall. 

Hath cover'd earth and me too soon. 




TJpdn my spirit came the knell 
That she would with the flowers be lost. 

A gleam of hope, like that rich light 
Which gives October golden bloom, 
Rose in my breast, but set in gloom : 

'Twas but sun dying into night. 

Now she is gone, and I alone 
Have trod the paths we used to tread, 

14c 



O long-lost moments! nevermore 
Shall ye return, or I leap up 
To drink from that divinest cun 

My lips once drank from, o'er and o'v. 

Adieu, ye glades of Paradise ! 

For such, in sooth, ye were to me; 

I go where I would ever be — 
To kiss the grave wherein she lies. 

181 




A GIFT OF FRIENDSHIP. 



if 



E whom she loves is far away 

From her and summer trees ; 
Daily he toils by dying beds 
Whose woe God only sees. 



She cannot share his holy task, 
She sits at home and prays, 

And sends her dainty haiidicraft 
To cheer his dreary ways. 



182 



Each stitch is set in faith and hope ; 

He feels their mystic spell : 
And how they aid his skill and strength 

He knows, but cannot tell. 

Not all of us may bear the gloom 
Where sins and sorrows blend. 

But those who do may feel our love 
On all their steps j>^^end. i. f. m^ \o. 




MEMORIES, 




FADED note— a lock of hair — • 
A flower within a book — 
A little locket lyinpj there 
In long forgotten nook. 

Oh, little treasnres, rarely seen, 

Vv'hat memories yon raise ! 
You whisper of what might have been; 
\ You sing of long-]^ast days. 

183 



Trifles all these? Ah, so they seem 
To those who do not know ; 

For me they bring a golden dream 
Of long, long years ago. 




FTER sunset in the west, 

Robes that clad the monarch Day, 
Golden crown and crimson vest, 

All are spurned and cast avray. 
Far along the purple sea 

Fading splendors slowly die ; 
Many a bird to many a tree 

Rustling flies, for night is nigh. 

After sunset, gone the glow, 

All the air with silence fills; 
After sunset, colder blow 

"Wailing winds from lonely hills. 
Ceased is labor, hushed is mirth. 

Day has died on couch of gold; 
Twilight veils the weary earth. 

Quiet broods o'er flock and fold. 



After sunset, o'er the moor 

Slowly flies the plover home; 
To the leafy cottage door. 

Sleepy-eyed the children come ; 
Watching how the great white moon 

Rises high o'er hill and plain; 
Silvery stars will sparkle soon, 

Peeping out and in again. 

After sunset melodies 

All unheard in noisy day, 
Like a fragrant southern breeze 

Through the pensive spirit stray. 
Mem'ries, lost, ah me ! so long. 

Floating round me dreamily, 
Like a dim -remembered song, 

Melt into a thought of thee ! 




184 



FRIENDSHIP OF DAMON AND PYTHIAS. 




A M O N 

was sen- 
tenced to 
die on a 
cer tai n 
day, and 
sought 
permis- 
sion of 

Dionysius of Syracuse to visit his family 
in the interim. It was granted on con- 
dition of securing a hostage for himself. 
Pythias heard of it and volunteered to 
stand in his friends stead. The king vis- 
ited him in prison, and conversed with 
him about the motive of his conduct; af- 
firming his disbelief in the influence of 
friendship. Pythias expressed his wish 
to die that his friend's honor might be 
vindicated. He prayed the gods to delay 
: he return of Damon till after his own exe- 
ution in his stead. The fatal day arrived. 
Dionysius sat on a moving throne, drawn 
by six white horses ; Pythias mounted the 
scaffold and calmly addressed the specta- 
tors : " My prayer is heard : the gods are 
propitious ; for the winds have been con- 
trary till yesterday. Damon could not 
come; he could not conquer impossibil- 
ities ; he will be here to-morrow, and the 
blood which is shed to-day shall have ran- 
somed the life of my friend. Oh, could 
I erase from your bosoms every mean sus- 
picion of the honor of Damon, I should 
go to my death as I would to my bridal. 
My friend will be found noble, his truth, 
unimpeachable ; he will speedily prove it; 
he is now on his way accusing Jiimsf If, the 
adverse elements, and the gods: but I 



haste to prevent his speed. Executioner, 
do your office." As he closed a voice in 
the distance cried, " Stop the execution ! " 
which was repeated by the whole assembly. 
A man rode up at full speed, mounted the 
scaffold, and embraced Pythias, crying, 
" You are safe, my beloved friend, I now 
have nothing but death to suffer, and am 
delivered from reproaches for having en- 
dangered a life so much dearer than my 
own.'' Damon replied: "Fatal haste, 
cruel impatience ! What envious powers 
have wrought impossibilities in your fa- 
vor? But I will not be wholly disap- 
pointed. Since I cannot die to save, I 
will not survive you." The King heard 
and was moved to tears. Ascending the 
scaffold, he cried, " Live, live, ye incom- 
parable pair ! Ye have borne unquestion- 
able testimony to the existence of virtue ; 
and that virtue equally evinces the exist- 
ence of a God to reward it. Live happy, 
live renowned, and oh ! form me by your 
precepts as ye have invited me by your 
example, to be worthy of the participation 
of so sacred a friendship." If heathenism 
had such friendships, what may be ex- 
pected of Christianity ? 



PARTED FRIENDS. 

FRIEND after friend departs : 
Who hath not lost a friend ? 
There is no union here of hearts 
That finds not here an end ; 
Were this frail world our only rest, 
Living or dying, none were blest. 

Beyond the flight of time, 
Beyond this vale of death, 



185 



PARTED FRIENDS. 



There surely is some blessed clime 

Where life is not a breath, 
Nor life's affections transient fire, 
Whose sparks fly upward to expire. 

There is a world above, 

Where parting is unknown ; 
A whole eternity of love, 

Formed for the good alone ; 
And faith beholds the dying here 
Translated to that happier sphere. 

Thus star by star declines, 

Till all are passed away. 
As morning high and higher shines, 

To pure and perfect day ; 
Nor sink those stars in empty night ; 
They hide themselves in heaven's own 
light. 

JAMES MONTGOMERY. 

THE AGE OF WISDOM. 

HO, pretty page with the dimpled chin 
That never has known the barber's 
shear, 
All 5'our wish is woman to win. 
This is the way that boys begin, — 
Wait till you come to Forty Year. 

Curly gold locks cover foolish brains. 

Billing and cooing is all your cheer ; 
Sighing and singing of midnight strains, 
Under Bonnybell's window-panes, — 
Wait till you come to Forty Year ! 

Forty times over let Michaelmas pass. 
Grizzling hair the brain doth clear- 
Then you know a boy is an ass. 
Then you know the worth of a lass. 
Once you have come to Forty Year. 

Pledge me round, I bid ye declare. 

All good fellows whose beards are grey, 
Did not the fairest of the fair 
Common grow and wearisome ere 
Ever a month was pass'd away? 

The reddest lips that ever have kiss'd. 

The brightest eyes that ever have shone. 
May pray and whisper, and we not list, 



Or look away, and never be miss'd, 
Ere yet ever a month is gone. 

Gillian's dead, God rest her bier! 

How I loved her twenty years syne! 
Marian's married, but I sit here 
Alone and merry at Forty Year, 

Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine. 

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 

WHEN ON MY BED. 



'HEN on my bed the moonlight 
falls, 
I know that in thy place of rest, 
By that broad water of the west. 
There comes a glory on the walls : 

Thy marble bright in dark appears. 
As slowly steals a silver flame 
Along the letters of thy name. 

And o'er the number of thy years. 

The mystic glory swims away ; 

From off my bed the moonlight dies j 
And, closing eaves of wearied eyes, 

I sleep till dusk is dipt in gra}^ : 

And then I know the mist is drawn, 
A lucid veil from coast to coast ; 
And in the dark church, like a ghost. 

Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn. 

ALFRED TENNYSON. 



THE DEAD FRIEND. 



FROM "IN MEM0RIA3I." 




HE path by which we twain did go, 
Which led by tracts that pleased 

us Avell, 
Through four sweet years arose 
and fell, 
From flower to flower, from snow 
to snow. 



But where the path we walked 
began 
To slant the fifth autumnal slope, 
As we descended, following Hope, 
There sat the Shadow feared of man; 

Who broke our fair companionship, 
And spread his mantle dark and cold, 



186 



THE DEAD FRIEND. 



And wrapped thee formless in the fold, 
And dulled the murmur on thy lip. 

When each by turns was guide to each, 
And Fancy light from Fancy caught, 
And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought 

Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech ; 

And all we met was fair and good. 
And all was good that Time could bring, 
And all the secret of the Spring 

Moved in the chambers of the blood ; 

• ••••• 

I know that this was Life, — the track 
"Whereon with equal feet we fared ; 
And then, as now, the day prepared 

The daily burden for the back. 

But this it was that made me move 

As light as carrier-birds in air ; 

I loved the weight I had to bear 
Because it needed help of Love : 

Nor could I weary, heart or limb. 

When mighty Love would cleave in twain 

The lading of a single pain. 
And part it, giving half to him. 

But I remained, whose hopes were dim, 
Whose life, whose thoughts were little worth, 
To wander on a darkened earth, 

Where all things round me breathed of him. 

friendship, equal-poised control, 
O heart, with kindliest motion warm, 

sacred essence, other form, 

solemn ghost, O crowned soul ! 

Yet none could better know than I, 
How much of act at human hands 
The sense of human will demands, 

By which we dare to live or die. 

Whatever way my days decline, 

1 felt and feel, though left alone, 
His being working in mine own. 

The footsteps of his life in mine. 

• ••••• 

My pulses therefore beat again 

For other friends that once I met; 

Nor can it suit me to forget 
The mighty hopes that make us men. 

1 woo your love : I count it crime 
To mourn for any overmuch ; 
I, the divided half of such 

A friendship as had mastered Time ; 



Which masters Time, indeed, and is 
Eternal, separate from fears : 
The all-assuming months and years 

Can take no part away from this. 

days and hours, your work is this. 
To hold me from my proper place, 
A little while from his embrace, 

For fuller gain of after bliss : 

That out of distance might ensue 

Desire of nearness doubly sweet ; 

And unto meeting when we meet, 
Delight a hundred-fold accrue. 

• ••••• 

The hills are shadows, and they flow 

From form to form, and nothing stands ; 

They melt like mist, the solid lands, 
Like clouds they shape themselves and go. 

But in my spirit will I dwell, 

And dream my dream, and hold it true ; 
For tho' my lips may breathe adieu, 

1 cannot think the' thing farewell. 

ALFRED TENNYSON, 



FIRESIDE MUSING. 

r[ ITTING where the fitful firelight 
^ Shines and glimmers on the wall, 
\ J Listening to the ceaseless patter 
f Of the raindrops as they fall. 

Musing like an idle dreamer 

While the moments come and go, 
Weaving fancies sad and tender 

Into now and long ago. 

Fire ! oh tell me, am I sitting 

Lowly at the Master's feet, 
With a filial heart accepting 

Joy and sorrow, bitter, sweet ? 
Sitting where, perchance, a mission 

Is to shed one little ray 
For a beacon to some pilgrim 

Groping for the heavenly way ? 

Falling raindrops ! tell me, tell me, 

Do I heed the still, small voice ? 
Listening to the call of duty ? 

In the Saviour's love rejoice? 
Listening to another's sorrow, 

With a hope to soothe the pain? 
Do I scatter love and sunshine 

As the clouds the falling rain? 

X87 



FIRESIDE MUSINGS. 



Roving thought ! oh, whither, whither, 

In thy musing dost thou speed? 
To some brother weary, toihng, 

That perhaps of aid has need ? 
Seeking out the spirit wand'ring ? 

Culling tares from golden grain ? 
Pondering on Christ's example, 

That this life be not in vain ? 

Child of earth ! say, art thou weaving 

In the tangled web of life 
Something more than tender fancies — 

Strength to brave the coming strife ? 
Weaving in each little duty, 

Better far than worldl}^ fame, 
Weaving patience, love, forbearance. 

Humbly in the Saviour's name ? 

Would that we were ever sitting 

Where we'd shed a steady light, 
Listening to the voice of conscience, 

Constant, always to the right; 
Musing on that better country. 

Free from sorrow, care, or blight. 
Where we'll weave our heav'nly fancies 

If while here we weave aright. 

ADA A. CHAFFEE. 



MY CHILDHOOD HOME. 

THERE'S a little low hut by the river's 
side, 
Within the sound of its rippling tide ; 
Its walls are grey with the mosses of 
years, 
And its roof all crumbled and old appears; 
But fairer to me than castle's pride 
Is the little low hut by the river's side ! 

The little low hut was my natal nest, 
When my childhood passed — Life's spring- 
time blest ; 
Where the hopes of ardent youth were formed, 
And the sun of promise my young heart 

warmed, 
Ere I threw myself on life's swift tide, 
And left the dear hut by the river's side. 

That little low hut, in lowly guise, 
Was soft and grand to my youthful eyes. 
And fairer trees were ne'er known before. 
Than the apple-trees by the humble door, — ■ 
That my father loved for their thrifty pride, — 
That shadowed the hut by the river's side. 

That little low hut had a glad hearthstone, 
That echoed of old with a pleasant tone, 



And brothers and sisters, a merry crew, 
Filled the hours with pleasure as on they flew; 
But one by one the loved ones died, 
That dwelt in the hut by the river's side. 

The father revered and the children gay 

The graves of the world have called away ; 

But quietly, all alone, here sits 

By the pleasant window, in summer, and knits. 

An aged woman, long jears allied 

With the little low hut by the river's side. 

That little low hut to the lonely wife 
Is the cherished stage of her active life; 
Each scene is recalled in memory's beam, 
As she sits by the window in pensive dream, 
And joys and woes roll back like a tide 
In that little low hut by the river's side. 

My mother — alone by the river's side 

She waits for the flood of the heavenly tide, 

And the voice that shall thrill her heart with 

its call 
To meet once more with the dear ones all. 
And forms in a region beautified. 
The band that once met by the river's side. 

The dear old hut by the river's side 

With the warmest pulse of my heart is 

allied, — 
And a glory is over its dark walls thrown. 
That statelier fabrics have never known, — 
And I shall love with a fonder pride 
That little low hut by the river's side. 

B. p. SHILLABER. {Mrs. Partington.) 



THE MEMORY OF THE HEART. 

IF stores of dry and learned lore we gain, 
We keep them in the memory of the brain, 
Names, things, and facts, — whate'er we 
knowledge call, — 
There is the common ledger for them all ; 
And images on this cold surface traced 
Make slight impression, and are soon efi'aced 
But we've a page, more glowing and more 

bright, 
On which our friendship and our love to write; 
That these may never from the soul depart. 
We trust them to the memory of the heart. 
There is no dimming, no efFacement there; 
Each new pulsation keeps the record clear; 
Warm, golden letters all the tablet fill, 
Nor lose their lustre till the heart stands stiH. 

DANIEL WEBSTER. 



188 



EXAMPLE OF FRIENDSHIP. 



» "- « »- 




IhERE is a remarkable example 
of friendship told of such as 
never heard of him who is the 
friend of sinners. It is so re- 
markable indeed that it pro- 
cured divine honors to Orestes 
pnd Pylades from the Scythians— a race 
so bloody, rude and savage, that they are 
said to have fed on human flesh, and 
made drinking-cups of their enemies' 
skulls. Engaged in an arduous enterprise, 
Orestes and Pylades, two sworn friends, 
landed on the shores of the Chersonesus 
to find themselves in the dominions and 
power of a king whose practice was lo 
seize on all strangers, and sacrifice them 
at the shrine of Diana. The traveUers 
were arrested. They were carried before 
the tyrant; and, doomed to death, were 
delivered over to Iphigenia, who, as priest- 
ess of Diana's temple, had to immolate 
the victims. Her knife is buried in their 
bosoms but that she learns before the 
blow is struck that they are Greeks- 
natives of her own native country. Anx- 
ious to open up a communication with 
the land of her birth, she offers to spare 
one of the two, on condition that the sur- 
vivor will become her messenger, and 
carry a letter to her friends in Greece. 
But which shall live and which shall die? 
That is the question. The friendship 
which has endured for years, in travels, 
and courts, and battle-fields, is now put 
to a strain it never bore before. And nobly 
it bears it ! Neither will accept the office 
of messenger, leaving his fellow to the 
stroke of death. Each implores the priest- 
ess to select him for the sacrifice, and let 
the other go. While they contend for the 
pleasure and honor of dying, Iphigenia 
discovers in one of them her own brother I 
She embraces him; and, sparing both, 
flees with them from that cruel shor?. 
Both are saved ; and the story, borne on 
flies abroad, fills the 



world with wonder, and, carried to distant 
regions, excited such admiration among 
the barbarous Scythians, that they paid 
divine honors to Orestes and Pylades, and, 
deifying these heroes, erected temples to 
their worship. 

DR. THOMAS GUTHRIE. 



THE STRANGER ON THE SILL. 

ETWEEX the broad fields of wheat and 



b: 



the wings of fame, 



[s the lowly home where I was bom; 

The peach tree leans against the wall^ 
And the woodbine wandei^ over alii 
There is the shaded doorway still, 
But a stranger's foot has cross'd the sill. 

There is the barn, and, as of yore, 

I can smell the hay from the open door, 

And see the busy swallows throng, 

And hear the pewee's mournful song ; 

But the stranger comes — oh, painful proof!— 

His sheaves are piled to the heated roof. 

There is the orchard— the very trees 
Where my childhood knew long hours of ease, 
And watch'd the shadowy moments run 
Till my life imbibed more shade than sun : 
The swing from the bough still sweeps the air. 
But the stranger's childi'en are swinging there. 

There bubbles the shady spring below, 
With its bulrush brook where the hazels grow: 
'Twas there I found the calamus root, 
And watched the minnows poise and shoot, 
And heard the robin lave his wing : — 
But the stranger's bucket is at the spring. 

ye who daily cross the sill, 

Step hghtly, for I love it still ; 

And when you crowd the old barn eaves, 

Then think what countless harvest sheaves 

Have pass'd within that scented door 

To gladden eyes that are no more. 

Deal kindly with these orchard trees ; 
And when your children crowd your knees,. 
Their sweetest fruit they shall impart, 
As if old memories stirr'd their heart : 
To youthful sport still leave the swing, 
And in sweet reverence hold the spring. 

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ* 



189 



TWENTY YEARS AGO 



I'VE wander'd to the village, Tom, I've 
sat beneath the tree, 
Upon the school-house play-ground, 
which shelter'd you and me ; 
But none were there to greet me, Tom, and 

few were left to know, 
That play'd with us upon the grass some 
twenty years ago. 

The grass is just as green, Tom — barefooted 

boys at play, 
vVere sporting just as we did then, with spirits 

just as gay ; 
But the " master " sleeps upon the hill, which, 

coated o'er with snow. 
Afforded us a sliding-place, just twenty years 

ago. 

The old school-house is alter'd some, the 
benches are replaced 

By new ones, very like the same our pen- 
knives had defaced ; 

But the same old bricks are in the wall, the 
bell swings to and fro, 

It's music, just the same, dear Tom, 'twas 
twenty years ago. 

The boys were playing some old game, be- 
neath the same old tree — 

I do forget the name just now; you've play'd 
the same with me 

On that same spot ; 'twas play'd with knives, 
by throwing so and so, 

The loser had a task to do, there, just twenty 
years ago. 

The river's running just as still, the willows 

on its side 
Are larger than they were, Tom, the stream 

appears less wide ; 
But the grapevine swing is ruin'd now where 

once we play'd the beau. 
And swung our sweethearts — " pretty girls " 

—just twenty years ago. 



close 



The spring that bubbled 'neath the hill, 

by the spreading beech. 
Is very low — 'twas once so high that we could 

almost reach ; 
And kneeling down to get a drink, dear Tom, 

I even started so ! 
To see how much that I am changed since 

twenty years ago. 



Near by the spring, upon an elm, you know 

I cut your name. 
Your sweetheart's just beneath it, Tom, and 

you did mine the same — • 
Some heartless wretch had peel'd the bark, 

'twas dying sure but slow, 
Just as the one whose name was cut, died 

twenty year? ago. 

My lids have long been dry, Tom, but tears 

came in my eyes, 
I thought of her I loved so well — those early 

broken ties — 
I visited the old churchyard, and took some 

flowers to strew 
Upon the graves of those we loved, some 

twenty years ago. 

Some are in the churchyard laid, some sleep 

beneath the sea. 
But few are left of our old class, excepting 

you and me. 
And when our time is come, Tom, and we 

are call'd to go, 
I hope they'll lay us where we play'd, just 

twenty years ago. 




THE QUARREL OF FRIENDS. 

FROM " CHRISTABEL." 

*LAS ! they had been friends in youth : 
But whispering tongues can poison 

truth ; 
And constancy lives in realms above ; 

And life is thorny ; and youth is vain ; 
And to be wroth with one we love 

Doth work like madness in the brain. 
And thus it ohanced, as I divine, 
With Roland and Sir Leoline ! 
Each spoke words of high disdain 

And insult to his heart's best brother ; 
They parted, — ne'er to meet again I 

But never either found another 
To free the hollow heart from paining. 
They stood aloof, the scars remaining, 
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder; 

A dreary sea now flows between. 
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder 

Shall wholly do away, I ween. 

The marks of that which once hath been. 

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 



190 



FRIENDSHIP. 



and extended open hands, proclaim obedi- 
ence to its laws— while at the same time 
the canker of -malice and envy and detrac- 
tion is enthroned in their hearts and 
active on their tongues. Friendship, true 
friendship, can only be found to bloom in 
the soil of a noble and self-sacrificing 
heart ; there it has a perennial summer, 
.Qever-endingsei.soii of felicity and joy to its 



There is true enjoyment in that friend- 
ship which has its source in the innocence 
and uprightness of a true heart. Such 
pleasures do greatly sweeten life, easing 
it from many a bitter burden. A sym- 
pathizing heart finds an echo in sympathiz- 
ing bosoms that bring back cheering 
music to the spirit of the loveliest. Be all 
honor, then, true friendship, and may it 



happy possessor, casting a thousand rays of gather yet more fragrant blossoms from 

love and hope and peace on all around. the dew-bathed meadows of social mter- 

No one can be happy without a friend, course, to spread their aroma along the 

and no one can know what friends he toil-worn road of life. What a blessing 

has until he is unhappy. it is to have a friend to whom one can 

It has been observed, that a real friend speak fearlessly upon any subject ; ^ with 

is somewhat like a ghost or apparition ; whom one's deepest thoughts come simply 

much talked of, but hardly ever seen, and safely. O, the comfort, the inexpres- 

Though this may not be exactly true, it slble comfort, of feeling safe with a person 

must however, be confessed, that a friend -having neither to weigh the thoughts 



loes not appear every day, and that he 
who in reality has found one, ought to 
value the boon, and be thankful. 

Where persons are united by the bonds 
of genuine friendship, there is nothing, 
perhaps, more conducive to felicity. It 
supports and strengthens the mind, alle- 
viates the pain of life, and renders the 



nor measure the words, but pouring them 
all right out, just as they are, chaff and 
grain together, certain that a faithful 
hand will take and sift them ; keep what 
is worth keeping, and then, with thebreath 
of kindness, blow the rest away. 

If any form an intimacy merely for what 
they can gain by it, this is not truefriend- 



VIHLCS Lilt: iJixiix yji. Aiiv,, c*x^v^ ^^^^^^^ J ^ ' I 1 r» P 

present state, at least somewhat comfort- ship in such a person. It must be free from 



able. '^ Sorrows," says Lord Yerulam, 
" by being communicated, grow less, and 
joys greater." *^ And indeed," observes 
another, *' sorrow, like a stream, loses 
itself in many channels ; while joy, like a 
a ray of the sun, reflects with a greater 
ardor and quickness when it rebounds 
upon a man from the breast of his friend." 
The friendship which is founded upon 
good tastes and congenial habits, apart 
from piety, is permitted by the benignity 
of Providence to embellish a world, which, 
with all its magnificence and beauty, will 
shortly pass away; that which has 
religion for its basis will ere long be 
transplanted in order to adorn the para- 
dise of God. 



any such selfish view, and only design 
mutual benefitas each may require. Again, 
it must be unreserved. It is true indeed 
that friends are not bound to reveal to 
each other all their fiuiiily concerns, but 
they should be ever ready to disclose what 
may in any point of view concern each 
other. Lastly, it is benevolent. Friends 
must study to please and oblige each 
other in the most delicate, kind, and lib- 
eral manner; and that in poverty and 
trouble, as well as in riches or prosperity. 
The benevolence of friends is also man- 
ifested in overlooking each other's faults, 
and, in the most tender manner, admon- 
ishing each other when they do amiss. 
Upon the whole, the purse, the heart, and 



191 



FRIENDSHIP, 



the house ought to be open to a friend, and 
in no case can we shut out either of them, 
unless upon clear proofs of treachery, 
immorality, or some other great crime. 

The first law of friendship is sincerity ; 
and he who violates this law, will soon 
find himself destitute of what he so 
erringly seeks to gain ; for the deceitful 
heart of such an one will soon betray itself, 
and feel the contempt due to insincerity. 
The world is so full of selfishness, that 
true friendship is seldom found ; yet it is 
often sought for paltry gain by the base 
and designing. Behold that toiling miser, 
with his ill-got and worthless treasures ; 
his soul is never moved by the hallowed 
influence of the sacred boon of friendship, 
which renews again on earth lost Eden's 
faded bloom, and flings hope's halcyon 
halo over the wastes of life. The envious 
man — he, too, seeks to gain the applause 
of others for an unholy usage, by which 
he may usurp a seat of pre-eminence for 
himself. Self-love, the spring of motion, 
acts upon his soul. All are fond of praise, 
and many are dishonest in the use of 
means to obtain it ; hence it is often diffi- 
cult to distinguish between true and false 

friendship. 

MY PLAYMATE. 

THE pines were dark on Ramoth hill, 
Their song was soft and low ; 
The blossoms in the sweet May wind 
Were falling like the snow. 

The blossoms drifted at our feet, 

The orchard birds sang clear ; 
The sweetest and the saddest day 

It seem'd of all the year. 

For more to me than birds or flowers, 

My playmate left her home, 
And took with her the laughing spring, 

The music and the bloom. 

She kissed the lips of kith and kin, 

She laid her hand in mine : 
What more could ask the bashful boy 

Who fed her father's kine ? 



She left us in the bloom of May : 

The constant years told o'er 
Their seasons with as sweet May morns, 

But she came back no more. 

I walk, with noiseless feet, the round 

Of uneventful years ; 
Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring 

And reap the autumn ears. 

She lives where all the golden year 

Her summer roses blow ; 
The dusky children of the sun 

Before her come and go. 

There haply with her jewell'd hands 
She smooths her silken gown, — 

IN"© more the homespun lap wherein 
I shook the walnuts down. 

The wild grapes wait us by the brook. 

And bro^ii nuts on the hill. 
And still the May-day flowers make sweet 

The woods of Follymill. 

The lilies blossom in the pond, 

The bird builds in the tree. 
The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill 

The slow song of the sea. 

I w^onder if she thinks of them, 
And how the old time seems, — 

If ever the pines of Ramoth wood 
Are sounding in her dreams. 

I see her face, I hear her voice : 

Does she remember mine ? 
And what to her is now the boy 

Who fed her father's kine ? 

What cares she that the orioles build 

For other eyes than ours, — 
That other hands with nuts are fill'd, 

And other laps with flowers ? 

playmate in the golden time ! 

Our mossy seat is green, 
Its fringing violets blossom yet, 

The old trees o'er it lean. 

The winds so sweet with birch and fern 

A sweeter memory blow ; 
And there in spring the veeries sing 

The song of long ago. 

And still the pines of Ramoth wood 

Are moaning like the sea, — 
The moaning of the sea of change 

Between myself and thee ! 

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIlB* 



192 




PAPj^y jipcox.j:.pcTiojiS. 





-i^=^zr^ 



HE fields 
on which 
I first 
looked, 
and the 
sands 
which 
were 
marked 
by my 
earliest 
footsteps, are completely lost to my mem- 
ory; and of those ancient walls among 
which I began to breathe, I retain no rec- 
ollection more clear than the outlines of a 

cloud in a moonless sky. But of L , 

the village where I afterwards lived, I 
persuade myself that every line and hue 
is more deeply and accurately fixed than 
those of any spot I have since beheld, 
even though borne in upon the heart by 
the association of the strongest feelings. 

My home was built upon the slope of a 
hill, with a little orchard stretching dow^n 
before it, and a garden rising behind. At 
a considerable distance beyond and be- 
neath the orchard, a rivulet flowed through 
meadows and turned a mill ; while, above 
the garden, the summit of the hill w^as 
crowned by a few gray rocks, from which 
a yew-tree grew, solitary and bare. Ex- 
tending at each side of the orchard, toward 
the brook, two scattered patches of cottages 
lay nestled among their gardens ; and be- 
yond this streamlet and the little mill and 
bridge, another slight eminence arose, di- 
vided into green fields, tufted and bordered 
with copsewood, and crested by a ruined 
castle, contemporary, as was said, with the 
Conquest. I know not whether these 
things in truth made up a prospect of much 
beauty. Since I was eight years old, I 
have never seen them ; but I well know 
that no landscapes I have since beheld, no 



picture of Claud or Salvator, gave me half 
the impression of living, heartfelt, perfect 
beauty which fills my mind when I think 
of that green valley, that sparkling rivu- 
let, that broken fortress of dark antiquity, 
and that hill with its aged yew and breezy 
summit, from which I have so often looked 
over the broad stretch of verdure beneath 
it, and the country-town, and church- 
tower, silent and white beyond. 

In that little town there was, and I 
jelieve is, a school where the elements of 
human knowledge were communicated to 
me, for some hours of every day, during 
a considerable time. The path to it lay 
across the rivulet and past the mill; from 
which point we could either journey 
through the fields below the old castle, 
and the wood which surrounded it, or 
along a road at the other side of the ruin, 
close to the gateway of which it passed. 
The former track led through two or three 
beautiful fields, the sylvan domain of the 
keep on one hand, and the brook on the 
other ; while an oak or two, like giant 
warders advanced from the wood, broke 
the sunshine of the green with a soft and 
graceful shadow. How often, on my way 
to school, have I stopped beneath the tree 
to collect fallen acorns ; how often run 
down to the stream to pluck a branch of 
the hawthorn which hung over the water! 
The road which passed the castle joined, 
beyond these fields, the path which trav- 
ersed them. It took, I well remember, a 
certain solemn and mysterious interest 
from the ruin. The shadow of the arch- 
way, the discolorations of time on all the 
walls, the dimness of the little thicket 
which encircled it, the traditions of its 
immeasurable age, made St. Qucntin's 
Castle a wonderful and awful fabric in the 
imagination of a child ; and long after I 
last saw its moldering roughness, I never 



193 



EARLY RECOLLECTIONS. 



rend of fortresses, or heights, or spectres, 
or banditti, without connecting them Avith 
the one ruin of my childhood. 

It was close to this spot that one of the 
few adventures occurred which marked, 
in my mind, my boyish days with im- 
portance. When loitering beyond the 
castle, on the way to school, with a brother 
somewhat older than myself, who w^as 
uniformly my champion and protector, 
we espied a round sole high up in the 
hedge-row. We determined to obtain it ; 
and I do not remember whether both of 
us, or only my brother, climbed the tree. 
However, when the prize was all but 
reached — and no alchemist ever looked 
more eagerly for the moment of projection 
which was to give him immortality and 
omnipotence — a gruff voice startled us 
with an oath, and an order to desist ; and 
I w^ell recollect looking back, for long after, 
with terror to the vision of an old and ill- 
tempered farmer, armed with a bill-hook, 
and vowing our decapitation; nor did I 
subsequently remember without triumph 
the eloquence whereby alone, in my firm 
belief, my brother and myself had been 
rescued from instant death. 

At the entrance of the little town stood 
an old gateway, with a pointed arch and 
decaying battlements. It gave admittance 
to the street which contained the church, 
and which terminated in another street, 

the principal one in the town of C . 

In this was situated the school to which I 
daily wended. I cannot now recall to 
mind the face of its good conductor, nor 
of any of his scholars ; but I have before 
me a strong general image of the interior 
of his establishment. I remember the 
reverence with which I was wont to carry 
to his seat a well-thumbed duodecimo, the 
History of Greece by Oliver Goldsmith. I 
remember the mental agonies I endured 
in attempting to master the art and mys- 
tery of penmanship; a craft which, alas, 
I remained too short a time under Mr. 
R to become as great a proficient as 



he made his other scholars, and which 
my awkwardness has prevented me from 
attaining in any considerable perfection 
under my various subsequent pedagogues. 
But that which has left behind it a bril- 
liant trail of light was the exhibition of 
wliat are caUed " Christmas pieces ;" things 
unknown in aristocratic seminaries, but 
constantly used at the comparatively 
humble academy which supplied the best 
knowledge of reading, writing, and arith- 
metic to be attained in that remote neigh- 
borhood. 

The long desks covered from end to end 
with those painted masterpieces, the Life 
of Robinson Crusoe, the Hunting of Chevy- 
Chase" the History of Jack the Giant- 
Killer, and all the little eager faces and 
trembling hands bent over these, and fill- 
ing them up with some choice quotation, 
sacred or profane; — no, the galleries of 
art, the theatrical exhibitions, the reviews 
and processions — which are only not 
childish because they are practised and 
admired by men instead of children — aU 
the pomps and vanities of great cities, 
have shown me no revelation of glory 
such as did that crowded school-room the 
week before the Christmas holidays. But 
these were the splendors of life. The 
truest and the strongest feelings do not 
connect themselves with any scenes of 
gorgeous and gaudy magnificence; they 
are bound up in the remembrances of 
home. 

The narrow orchard, with its grove of 
old apple trees, against one of which I 
used to lean, and while I brandished a 
beanstalk, roar out with Fitzjames, 

" Come one, come all ; this rock shall fly 
From its firm base as soon as I " — 

while I was ready to squall at the sight of 
a cur, and run valorously away from a 
casually approaching cow ; the field close 
beside it, where I rolled about in summer 
among the hay ; the brook in w^hich, de- 
spite of maid and mother, I waded by the 
hour; the garden where I sowed flower 



194 



EARLY RECOLLECTIONS. 



seeds, and then turned up the ground 
again and planted potatoes, and then 
rooted out the potatoes to insert acorns 
and apple-pips, and at last, as may be 
supposed, reaped neither roses, nor pota- 
toes, nor oak trees, nor apples ; the grass- 
plots on which I played among those with 
whom I never can play nor work again : 
all these are places and employments — 
and, alas, playmates — such as, if it were 
worth while to weep at all, it would be 
worth weeping that I enjoy no longer. 

I remember the house where I first 
grew familiar with peacocks ; and the 
mill-stream into which I once fell; and 
the religious awe wherewith I heard, in 
the warm twilight, the psalm-singing 
around the house of the Methodist miller : 
and the door-post against which I dis- 
charged my brazen artillery ; I remember 
the window by which I sat while my 
mother taught me French ; and the patch 

of garden which I dug for But her 

name is best left blank; it was indeed 
writ in water. The recollections are to 
me like the wealth of a departed friend, a 
mournful treasure. But the public has 
heard enough of them ; to it they are 
worthless : they are a coin Avhich only cir- 
culates as its true value between the dif- 
v'erent periods of an individual's existence, 
;ind good for nothing but to keep up a 
• iommerce between boyhood and man- 
' lood. I have for years looked forward to 

the possibility of visiting L ; but I 

am told that it is a changed village ; and 
not only has man been at work, but the 
old yew on the hill has fallen, and scarcely 
a low stump remains of the tree which I 
delighted in childhood to think might 
have furnished bows for the Norman 
archers. john sterling. 



WE HAVE BEEN FRIENDS TOGETHER. 

^J^E have been friends together 
Jfkft In sunshine and in shade, 
^ f Since first beneath the chestnut-tree 
In infancy we played. 



But coldness dwells within thy heart, 

A cloud is on thy brow ; 
We have been friends together, 

Shall a light word part us now ? 

AVe have been gay together ; 

We have laughed at little jests ; 
For the fount of hope was gushing 

Warm and joyous in our breasts. 
But laughter now hath fled thy lip. 

And sullen glooms thy brow ; 
We have been gay together, 

Shall a light word part us now ? 

We have been sad together ; 

We have wept with bitter tears 
O'er the grass-grown graves where slumbered 

The hopes of early years. 
The voices which were silent then 

Would bid thee clear thy brow ; 
We have been sad together, 

Shall a light word part us now ? 

CAROLINE E. S. NORTON. 



GO WHERE GLORY WAITS THEE. 



c 



O where glory waits thee ; 
But while fame elates thee, 

Oh still remember me ! 
When the praise thou meetest 
To thine ear is sweetest, 

Oh then remember me ! 
Other arms may press thee, 
Dearer friends caress thee, 
All the joys that bless thee, 

Sweeter far may be; 
But when friends are nearest, 
And when joys are dearest, 

Oh then remember me ! 

When at eve thou rovest 
By the star thou lovest. 

Oh then remember me ! 
Think, when home returning, 
Bright we've seen it burning, 

Oh thus remember me ! 
Oft as summer closes, 
When thine eye reposes 



195 



GO WHERE GLORY WAITS THEE, 



On its lingering roses, 

Once so loved by thee, 
Think of her who wove them, 
Her who made thee love them — 

Oh then remember me ! 

When around thee dying 
Autumn leaves are lying, 

Oh then remember me ! 
And at night when gazing 
On the gay hearth blazing, 

Oh still remember me ! 
Then should music, stealing 
All the soul of feeling. 
To thy heart appealing, 

Draw one tear from thee; 
Then let memory bring thee 
Strains I used to sing thee — 

Oh then remember me ! 

THOMAS MOORE. 

OLD FRIENDS. 

^^ p\LD friends ! '' What a multitude of 
I J deep and varied emotions are 
called forth from the soul by the 
utterance of these two words. What 
thronging memories of other days crowd 
the brain when they are spoken. Ah, 
there is a magic in the sound and the 
spell which it creates is both sad and pleas- 
ing. As we sit by our fireside, while the 
winds are making wild melody without the 
walls of our cottage, and review the 
scenes of by-gone years which flit before 
us in swift succession, dim and shadowy 
as the recollections of a dream — how 
those "old familiar faces'' will rise up 
and haunt our vision with their well re- 
membered features. But ah, where are 
they ? those friends of our youth — those 
kindred spirits who shared our joy and 
sorrows when first we started in the pil- 
grimage of life. Companions of our 
early days, they are endeared to us by 
many a tie, and we now look back through 



the vista of years upon the hours of our 
communion, as upon green oases in a 
sandy waste. Years have passed over us 
with their buds and flowers, their fruits 
and snows ; and where now are those 
"old familiar faces?" They are scattered, 
and over many of their last narrow homes 
the thistle waves its lonely head ; " after 
life's fitful fever they sleep well." Some 
are buffeting the billows of time's stormy 
sea in distant lands ; ' though they are 
absent our thoughts are often with them. 



OFT IN THE STILLY NIGHT. 

^FT, in the stilly night. 

Ere Slumber's chain has bound 
me, 
Fond memory brings the light 
Of other days around me ; 
The smiles, the tears, 
Of boyhood's years, 
The words of love then spoken ; 
The eyes that shone, 
Now dimmed and gone. 
The cheerful hearts now broken ! 
Thus, in the stilly night. 

Ere Slumber's chain hath bound me, 
Sad Memory brings the light 
Of other days around me. 

When I remember all 

The friends so linked together, 
I've seen around me fall 

Like leaves in wintry weather ; 
I feel like one 
Who treads alone 
Some banquet-hall deserted, 
Whose lights are fled, 
Whose garlands dead, 
And all but he departed ! 
Thus, in the stilly night. 

Ere Slumber's chain has bound me. 
Sad Memory brings the light 
Of other days around me. 



THOMAS MOORE, 



196 



FRIENDSHIP. 



CELESTIAL Happiness ! whene'er she 
stoops 
To visit earth, one shrine the goddess 
finds, 
And one alone, to make her sweet amends 
For absent heaven, — the bosom of a friend ; 
Where heart meets heart, reciprocally soft. 
Each other's pillow to repose divine. 
Can gold gain friendship? Impudence of 

hope : 
Love, and love only, is the loan for love. 

Lorenzo ! pride repress, nor hope to find 
A friend, but what has found a friend in thee : 
All like the purchase, few the price will pay ; 
And this makes friends such miracles below. 
What if, since daring on so nice a theme, 
I show thee friendship delicate as dear? 
Reserve will wound it, and distrust destroy. 

Deliberate on all things with thy friend : 
But, since friends grow not thick on every 

bough, 
Nor every friend unrotten at the core. 
First on thy friend deliberate with thyself; 
Pause, ponder, sift ; nor eager in the choice 
Nor jealous of the chosen; fixing, fix; 
Judge before friendship; then confide till 

death. 
A friend is worth all hazards we can run. 

EDWARD YOUNG. 

Not unremember'd is the hour when friends 
Met ; friends but few on earth, and therefore 

dear. 
Sought oft, and sought almost as oft in vain : 
Yet always sought; so native to the heart. 
So much desired and coveted by all. 
Nor wonder thou, — thou wonder'st not, nor 

need'st : 
Much beautiful, and excellent, and fair. 
Was seen beneath the sun ; but naught was 

seen 
More beautiful, or excellent or fair. 
Than face of foithful friend,— fairest when seen 
In darkest day. 

And many sounds were sweet, 
Most ravishing, and i)leasant to the ear ; 
Butsweeter none than voice of faithful friend,— 
Sweet always, sweetest heard in loudest storm. 
Some I remember, and will ne'er forget : — 
My early friends, friends of my evil day ; 
Friends in my mirth, friends in my misery too ; 



Friends given by God in mercy and in love; 
My counselors, my comforters, and guides ; 
My joy in grief, my second bliss in joy ; 
Companions of my young desires ; in doubt 
My oracles, my wings in high pursuit. 

Oh, I remember, and will ne'er forget, 
Our meeting-spots, our cliosen, sacred hours ; 
Our burning words, that utter'd all the soul ; 
Our faces, beaming with unearthly love ; 
Sorrow with sorrow sighing, hope with hope 
Exulting, heart embracing heart entire. 
As birds of social feather, helping each 
His fellow's flight, we soar'd into the skies. 
And cast the clouds beneath our feet, and 

earth, 
With all her tardy, leaden-footed cares. 
And talk'd the speech and ate the food of 

heaven. 

These I remember, — these selected men, — 
And would their names record; but what 

avails 
My mention of their name ? before the throne 
They stand illustrious 'mongthe loudest harps, 
And will receive thee glad, my friend and 

theirs. 
For all are friends in heaven, — all faithful 

friends ; 
And many friendships in the days of Time 
Begun are lasting here and grooving still ; 
So grows ours evermore, both theirs and mine. 

ROBERT PC LLC K. 

WE ARE BRETHREN A'. 

L^ HAPPY bit hame this auld world 
would be 
If men, when they're here, could 
make shift to agree", 
An' ilk said to his neighbor, in cottage an' ha', 
" Come, gi'e me your hand, — we are brethren 
a'." 

I ken na why ane wi' anither should fight. 

When to 'gree would make ac body cosie an' 
right. 

When man meets wi' man, 't is the best way 
ava. 

To say, "Gi'e me your hand, — we are breth- 
ren a'." 

My coat is a coarse ane, an' yours may be fine, 
And I maun drink water, while you may drink 
wine ; 



197 



WB ARE BRETHREN A 



But we oaitli ha'e a leal heart, unspotted to 

shaw : 
Sae gi'e me your hand, — we are brethren a'. 

The knave ye would scorn, the unfaithfu' 

deride ; 
Ye would stand like a rock, wi' the truth on 

your side ; 
Sae would I, an' naught else would I value a 

straw : 
Then gi'e rae your hand, — we are brethren a'. 

Ye would scorn to do fausely by woman or 

man; 
I hand by the right aye, as weel as I can ; 
We are ane in our joj's, our affections, an' a' : 
Come, gi'e me your hand, — ^we are brethren a'. 

Your mother has lo'ed you as mithers can 

lo'e; 
An' mine has done for me what mithers can 

do; 
We are ane high an' laigh, an' we shouldna 

be twa : 
Sae gi'e me your hand, — we are brethren a'. 

We love the same simmer day, sunny and fair ; 
Hame ! oh, how we love it, an a' that are there ! 
Frae the pure air of heaven the same life we 

draw : 
Come, gi'e me your hand, — we are brethren a'. 

Frail shakin' auld age will soon come o'er us 

baith, 
An' creeping alang at his back will be death ; 
Syne into the same mither-yird we will fa' : 
Come, gi'e me your hand, — we are brethren a'. 

ROBERT NICOLL. 



I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER. 

REMEMBER, I remember, 
The house where I was born, 
The little window where the sun 
Came peeping in at morn : 
He never came a wink too soon, 

Nor brought too long a day ; 

But now, I often wish the night 

Had borne my breath away. 

I remember, I remember, 

The roses, red and white ; 
fhe violets and the lily-cups. 

Those flowers made of light! 
The lilacs where the robin built, 



And where my brother set 
The laburnum on his birthday,— 
The tree is living yet ! 

I remember, I remember, 

Where I was used to swing ; 
And thought the air must rush as fresh 

To swallows on the wing : 
My spirit flew in feathers then, 

That is so heavy now, 
And summer pools could hardly cool 

The fever on my brow ! 

I remember, I remember, 

The fir trees dark and high ; 
I used to think their slender tops 

Were close against the sky : 
It was a childish ignorance. 

But now 'tis little joy 
To know I'm farther off from heaven 

Than when I was a boy. 

THOMAS HOOD, 



A TEMPLE TO FRIENDSHIP. 



"A 



TEMPLE to Friendship," cried Laura, 

enchanted, 
" I'll build in this garden ; the thought 
is di\'ine." 
So the temple was built, and she now only 

wanted 
An image of Friendship, to place on the 
shrine 

So she flew to the sculptor, who sat down be- 
fore her 

An image, the fairest his art could invent : 

But so cold, and so dull, that the youthful 
adorer 

Saw plainly this was not the Friendship she 
meant. 

"O, never," said she, "could I think of en- 
shrining 

An image whose looks are so joyless and dim ; 

But yon little god upon roses reclining. 

We'll make, if you please, sir, a Friendship of 
him." 

So the bargain was struck ; with the little god 

laden. 
She joj'fully flew to her home in the grove. 
"Farewell," said the sculptor, "you 're not 

the first maiden 
Who came but for Friendship, and took away 

Love!" THOMAS MOORE. 



198 



BILL AND JOE. 



GO^IE, dear old comrade, you and I 
^M11 steal an hour from days gone by ; 
The shining days when life was new, 
And all was bright with morning 
dew, — 
The lusty days of long ago, 
When you were Bill and I was Joe. 

Your name may flaunt a titled trail 
Proud as a cockerel's rainbow-tail; 
And mine as brief appendix wear 
As Tarn O'Shanter's luckless mare : 
To-day, O friend, remember still 
That I am Joe, and you are Bill. 

You've won the great w^orld's envied prize, 
And grand you look in people's eyes, 
With H.O.N, and L.L.D., 

In big, brave letters, fair to see, — 
Your fist, old fellow ! off they go ! — 
How are you, Bill ? How are you, Joe ? 

You've won the judge's ermined robe. 
You've taught your name to half the globe ; 
You've sung mankind a deathless strain ; 
You've made the dead past live again : 
The world may call you what it will, 
But you and I are Joe and Bill. 

The chaffing young folks stare, and say, 
"See those old buffers, bent and gray, — 
They talk like fellows in their teens ! 
Mad, poor old boys ! That's what it means," — 
And shake their lieads : they little know 
The throbbing hearts of Bill and Joe ! 

How Bill forgets his hour of pride, 
While Joe sits smiling at his side ; 
How Joe, in si:)ite of time's disguise. 
Finds the old schoolmate in his eyes, — 
Those calm, stern eyes, that melt and fill 
As Joe looks fondly up at Bill. 

Ah, pensive scholar, what is fiime ? 

A fitful tongue of leaping flame : 

A giddy whirlwind's fickle gust. 

That lifts a pinch of mortal dust ; 

A few swift years, and who can show 

Which dust was Bill, and which was Joe? 

The weary idol takes his stand. 
Holds out his bruised and aching hand, 
While gaping thousands come and go,^ 
How vain it seems, this empty show ! 



Till all at once his pulses thrill : — 

'Tis poor old Joe's " God bless you. Bill 1 

And shall we breathe in happier spheres 
The names that pleased our mortal ears, 
In some sweet lull of harp and song 
For earth-born spirits none too long. 
Just whispering of the world below 
Where this was Bill and that Avas Joe? 

No matter : while our home is here. 
No sounding name is half so dear : 
W^hen fades at length our lingering day, 
Who cares Avhat pompous tombstones say? 
Read on the hearts that love us still. 
Hie jacet Joe. Hie jacet Bill. 

OLIVER W. HOLMES. 



IMPORTANCE OF FRIENDSHIP. 

WHEN a man, blind from his birth, 
was asked what he thought the 
sun to be like, he replied, '' Like 
friendship." He could not con- 
ceive of anything more fitting as a simili- 
tude for what he had been taught to regard 
as the most glorious of material objects, 
and whose quickening and exliilarating 
influences he had rejoiced to feel. And 
truly friendship is a sun, if not the sun, of 
life. All feel it ought to be so. It would 
be common-place to dwell upon its de- 
lig-hts and advantages. The thome of 
poets and moralists in all ages and coun- 
tries, what can be said upon it has bee i 
said so often as to make repetition stale, so 
well as to make improvement impossible. 
How friendship is a pearl of greatest price; 
how it is often more deep and steadfast 
than natural affection, " a friend " some- 
times ^'sticketh closer than a brother:'' 
how it is as useful as lovely, "strength and 
beauty ;" how it lessens grief and increases 
pleasure; all this is familiar as the lessons 
of childhood, and true as the elementary 
principles of our nature. morris 



199 



THE CANTEEN. 



THERE axe bonds of all sorts in this world 
of ours, 
Fetters of friendship, and ties of flowers. 
And true-lovers' knots, I ween ; 
The girl and the boy are bound by a kiss, 
But there's never a bond, old friend, like this, — 
We have drunk from the same canteen! 

It was sometimes water, and sometimes milk, 
And sometimes apple-jack, fine as silk, 

But, whatever the tipple has been. 
We shared it together, in bane or bliss ; 
And I warm to you, friend, when I think of 

this, — 
We have drunk from the same canteen ! 

The rich and the great sit down to dine, 
And they quaff" to each other in sparkling 
wine, 
From glasses of crystal and green ; 
But I guess in their golden potations they miss 



The warmth of regard to be found in this,— 
We have drunk from the same canteen ! 

We have shared our blankets and tents 

together, 
And have marched and fought in all kinds of 
weather. 
And hungry and full we have been ; 
Had days of battle, and days of rest. 
But this memory I cling to and love the best,— 
We have drunk from the same canteen ! 

For when wounded I lay on the outer slope. 
With my blood flowing fast and but little hope 

Upon which my faint spirit could lean, — 
Oh ! then, I remember, you crawled to my 

side, 
And bleeding so fast it seemed both must 
have died. 
We drank from the same canteen ! 

PRIVATE MILES O'REILLY. 




THE OLD ARM CHAIR, 



(LOVE it, I love it ; and who shall dare 
To chide me for loving that old arm- 
chair ? 
I've treasured it long as a sainted 
prize ; 
I've bedew'd it with tears, and embalm'd it 

with sighs, 
'Tis bound by a thousand bands to my heart; 
Not a tie will break, not a link will start. 
Would ye learn the spell? — a mother sat 

there ; 
And a sacred thing is that old arm-chair. 

In childhood's hour I linger'd near 
The hallow'd seat with listening ear ; 
And gentle words that mother would give 
To fit me to die, and teach me to live. 
She told me shame would never betide. 
With truth for my creed and God for my guide ; 
She taught me to lisp my earliest prayer, 
A* I knelt beside that old arm-chair. 



I sat and watch'd her many a day, 

When her eye grew dim, and her locks were 

gray: 
And I almost worshipp'd her when she smiled, 
And turn'd from her Bible, to bless her child. 
Years roll'd on ; but the last one sped — 
My idol was shatter 'd ; my earth-star fled ; 
I learnt how much the heart can bear, 
When I saw her die in that old arm-chair. 

'Tis past, 'tis past, but I gaze on it now 
With quivering breath and throbbing brow : 
'Twas there she nursed me ; 'twas there she 

died : 
And memory flows with lava tide. 
Say it is folly, and deem me weak, 
While the scalding drops start down my 

cheek ; 
But I love it, I love it ; and cannot tear 
My soul from a mother's old arm-chair. 

BLIZA COOK. 



200 



THE RETREAT. 




f APPY tl:iose early days, when I 
Sliined in my angel-infancy ! 
Before I understood tliis place 
Appointed for my second race, 
Or taught my soul to fancy aught 
But a Avliite celestial thought; 
When yet I had not walk'd above 
A mile or two from my first love, 
And looking back at that short space 
Could see a glimpse of his bright face ; 
When on some gilded cloud or flower 
My gazing soul would dwell an hour, 
And in those weaker glories spy- 
Some shadows of eternity ; 
Before I taught my tongue to wound 
My conscience with a sinful ^und. 
Or had the black art to dispense 
A several sin to every sense. 
But felt through all this fleshly dress 
Bright shoots of everlastingness. 

Oh, how I long to travel back. 
And tread again that ancient track ! 



That I might once more reach that plain, 
Where first I left my glorious train ; 
From whence th' enlighten'd spirit sees 
That shady City of Palm trees : 
But ah ! my soul with too much stay 
Is drunk, and staggers in the way : 
Some men a forward motion love. 
But I my backward steps would move 
And when this dust falls to the urn. 
In that state I came, return. 

HENRY VAUGHAN, 



THE INTERCOURSE OF FRIENDSHIP. 

^ZT HE world would be more happy, if 
^^ persons gave up more time to an 
intercourse of friendship. But money 
engrosses all our deference ; and we scarce 
enjoy a social hour, because we think it 
unjustly stolen from the main business of 

life. SHENSTONB. 



THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. 



^,E sat within the farm-house old, 

Whose windows, looking o'er the bay. 
Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold, 
An easy entrance, night and day. 

Not far away we saw the port, — 

The strange, old-fashioned, silent town, — 

The light-house, — the dismantled fort, — 
The wooden houses, quaint and brown. 

We sat and talked until the night, 
Descending, filled the little room ; 

Our faces faded from the sight — 
Our voices only broke the gloom. 

We spake of many a vanished scene, 
Of what we once had thought and said, 

Of what had been, and might have been. 
And who was changed, and who was dead ; 



And all that fills the hearts of friends. 
When first they feel, with secret pain, 
15c 



Their lives thenceforth have separate ends, 
And never can be one again ; 

The first slight swerving of the heart, 
That words are powerless to express, 

And leave it still unsaid in part, 
Or say it in too great excess. 

The very tones in which we spake 

Had something strange, I could but mark; 

The leaves of memory seemed to make 
A mournful rustling in the dark. 

Oft died the words upon our lips, 

As sudilenly, from out the fire 
Built of the wreck of stranded ships, 

The flames would leap and then expire. 

And, as their splendor flashed and failed, 
We thought of wrecks upon the main,^- 

Of shii)s dismasted, that were hailed 
And sent no answer back again. 



201 



THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. 



The mndows, rattling in their frames, — 
The ocean, roaring up the beach, — 

The gusty blast, — the bickering flames, — 
All mingled vaguely in our speech ; 

Until they made themselves a part 

Of fancies floating through the brain, — 

The long-lost ventures of the heart, 
That sends no answers back again. 

Oh flames that glowed! Oh hearts that 
yearned ! 

They were indeed too much akin — 
The drift-wood fire without that burned. 

The thoughts that burned and glowed within. 

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 



LASTING FRIENDSHIP. 

EUXIS replied 
to some who 
blamed the 
slowness of 
his pencil, 
that he there- 
fore spent a 
long time in 
painting, because he designed his w^ork 
should last for a long eternity. So he 
that would secure a lasting friendship and 
acquaintance must first deliberately judge 
and thoroughly try its worth before he 
settles it. plutarch. 





WHAT MIGHT BE DONE. 

J^HAT might be done if men were 
wise — 

What glorious deeds, my suffer- 
ing brother 
AYould they unite 
In love and right, 
And cease their scorn of one another ? 

Oppression's h^art might be imbued 
With kindling drops of loving-kindness; 



And knowledge pour, 
From shore to shore, 
Light on the eyes of mental blindness. 

All slavery, warfare, lies, and wrongs, 
All vice and crime, might die together ; 

And wine and corn. 

To each man born, 
Be free as warmth in summer weatherc 

The meanest wretch that ever trod. 
The deepest sunk in guilt and sorrow. 

Might stand erect 

In self-respect, 
And share the teeming world to-morrow. 

What might be done ? This might be done, 
And more than this, my suffering 
brother — 

More than the tongue 
E'er said or sung, 
If men were wise and loved each other. 

CHARLES MACKAY. 



\ 



FRIENDSHIP. 

RUDDY drop of manly blood 
The surging sea outweighs ; 
The world uncertain comes and goes, 
The lover rooted stays. 

I fancied he was fled, — 

And after many a year, 

Glowed unexhausted kindliness, 

Like daily sunrise there. 

My careful heart was free again ; 

O friend, my bosom said. 

Through thee alone the sky is arched, 

Through thee the rose is red ; 

All things through thee take nobler form, 

And look beyond the earth ; 

The mill-round of our fate appears 

A sun-path in thy worth. 

Me too thy nobleness has taught 

To master my despair ; 

The fountains of my hidden life 

Are through thy friendship fair. 

RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 



202 






RELATION OF FRIENDS, 




if 



(^^l^HERE are many turnlog points 
^ I when the question of success or 
VJ^ failure is decided again and again. 
^ Life is a campaign, in which a 
series of fortresses are to be taken ; all 
previous victories and advances may be 
thrown away by failure in the next. 
Nearly the last of these is companion- 
ship ; if one wins victory here, the reward 
of a prosperous manhood is within reach. 

If there were but one general truth 
that I could lodge in the mind of any one 
or all men, it would be this : that true life 
consists in the fulfillment of relations. We 
are born into relations ; we never get oat 
of them; all duty consists in meeting 
them. The family, the church, the state, 
the humanity at large,-^these are the 
sources of our primary and abiding duties, 
as well as of our happiness, — the sum- 
total of ethics and religion. 

The relation of friends, though not so 
sharply defined as that of the family or 
the state, is as real and as essential to a 
full life. Emerson says : " Maugre all 
the selfishness that chills like east winds 
the world, the whole human family is 
bathed with an element of love like a fine 
ether.'' To get this ensphering love into 
form and expression is the office of friend- 
ship. Bacon goes so far as to say that 
'* a principal fruit of friendship is the 
ease and discharge of the fulness of the 
heart." He goes on in his noble and wise 
way to name its other points, and nothing 
on the subject is better than his threefold 
statement of its uses : " Peace in the affec- 
tions, support of the judgment, and bear- 
ing a part in all actions and occasions.'' 



Of course I regard friendship as a real 
and abiding thing, and not as that other 
thing that comes and goes with fortune. 
I have no faith in the miserable notions 
that the poor are friendless because they 
are poor, and that friends desert on the 
approach of poverty. Poverty may win- 
now the false from the true, but it does 
not destroy the wheat. The poor may be 
friendless, and even poor because they are 
friendless, never having won friends. 
This fine relation does not turn upon pov- 
erty, but upon disposition or temper, or 
the chances of life. Happy is he who 
wins friends in early life by true affini- 
ties ! He multiplies himself; he has more 
hands and feet than his own, and other 
fortresses to flee into when his own are 
dismantled by evil fortune, and other 
hearts to throb with his joy. 

Friendship is of such a nature that it 
is difficult to name rules for it ; it is its 
own law and method. So etherial a thing 
cannot be brought under choice or rule. 
It is rather a matter of destiny. If one 
is born to have friends he will have them. 
Emerson says, that " one need not seek for 
friends; they come of themselves." But 
Solomon goes deeper in his proverb : '' A 
man that hath friends must show himself 
friendly." Let one offer to the world a 
large, generous, true, sympathetic nature 
and rich or poor, he will have friends, and 
he will never be friendless whatever ciitas- 
trophies befall him. 

This matter of friendship is often re- 
garded slightingly, as a mere accessory of 
life, a happy chance if one falls into it, 
but not as entering into the substance of 



203 



RELATION OF FRIENDS, 



life. Xo mistake could be greater. It 
is not, as Emerson says, a thing of ^^ glass 
threads or frost-work, but the solidest 
thing we know." ^' There is in friend- 
ship" — as Evelyn writes in the life of 
Mrs. Godolphin — "something of all rela- 
tions and something above them all. It 
is the golden thread that tie^ the hearts of 
all the world." 



THEODORE T. MUNGE] 



EARLY FRIENDSHIP. 

J5«F^ HE half-seen memories of childish 

' 'VMien pains and pleasures lightly 

came and went : 
The sympathies of boyhood rashly spent 
In fearful wanderings through forbidden ways ; 
The vague, but manly wish to tread the maze 
Of life to noble ends ; whereon intent, 
Asking to know for what man here is sent, 
The bravest heart must often pause, and gaze — 
The firm resolve to seek the chosen end 
Of manhood's judgment, cautions and mature : 
Each of these viewless bonds binds friend to 

friend 
With strength no selfish purpose can secure ;— 
My happy lot is this, that all attend 
That friendship which first came, and which 

shall last endure. 

AUBREY DE VERE. 



G 



BENEDICITE, 

OD"S love and peace be with thee, where 
Soe'er this soft autumnal air 
Lifts the dark tresses of thv hair ! 



^Miether through city casements comes 
Its kiss to thee, in crowded rooms, 
Or, out among the woodland blooms, 

It freshens o'er thy thoughtful face, 
Imparting, in its glad embrace. 
Beauty to beauty, grace to gi-ace ! 

Fair Nature's book together read. 

The old wood-paths that knew our tread, 

llie maple shadows overhead, — 

The hills we -climbed, the river seen 
By gleams along its deep ravine. — ■ 
All keep thy memory fresh and green. 



Where'er I look, where'er I stray 
Thy thought goes Avith me on my way, 
And hence the prayer I breathe to-day : 

O'er lapse of time and change of scene. 
The weary waste which lies between 
Thyself and me, my heart I lean. 

Thou lack'st not Friendship's spellword, nor 
The half-unconscious power to draw 
All hearts to thme by Love's sweet law. 

With these good gifts of God is cast 
Thy lot, and many a charm thou hast 
To hold the blessed angels fast. 

If, then, a fervent wish for thee 

The gracious heavens will heed fi'om me, 

What should, dear heart, its burden be ? 

The sighing of a shaken reed, — 
TMiat can I more than meekly plead 
The greatness of our common need? 

God's love, — unchanging, pure, and true, — 
The Paraclete white-shining through 
His peace, — the fall of Hermon's dew I 

With such a prayer, on this sweet day, 
As thou mayst hear and I may say, 

I greet thee, dearest, far away I 

JOHN G. WHITTIER. 



FRIENDSHIP FLAWED. 

TTEIEXDSHIP is a vase which, when 
^ it is flawed by heat, or violence, or 
accident, may as well be broken at once ; 
it can never be trusted after. The more 
graceful and ornamental it was, the more 
clearly do we discern the hopelessness of 
restoring it to its former state. Coarse 
stones, if they are fractured, may be 
cemented again ; precious stones — never. 

L A N D O R . 



KIXDRED passions and pursuits are 
the natural groundwork of friendship. 
Real friendship is of slow growth, and 
never thrives, unless ingrafted upon a 
stock of known and reciprocal merit. 



CHESTERFIELD, 



204 




FRIENDSHIP 




URE, disin- 
ter ested 
friendship, 
is a bright 
flame, emit- 
ting none of 
the smoke 
o f selfish- 
ness, and 
s e 1 d o m 
deigns to tabernacle among men. Its 
origin is divine, its operations heavenly, 
and its results enrapturing to the soul. 
It is because it is the perfection of earth- 
ly bliss that the world has ever been 
flooded with base counterfeits, many so 
thickly coated with the pure metal, that 
nothing but time can detect the base inte- 
rior and ulterior designs of bogus friends. 
Deception is a propensity deeply rooted 
in human nature, and the hobby horse on 
which some ride through life. The heart 
is deceitful above all things ; who can know it f 
Caution has been termed the parent of 
safety, but has often been baffled by a 
Judas kiss. The most cautious have been 
the dupes and victims of the basest 
deceivers. We should be extremely care- 
ful whom we confide in, and then we will 
often find ourselves mistaken. Let adver- 
sity come, then we may know more of our 
friends. Many will probably show that 
they were sunshine friends, and will 
escape as for their lives, like rats from a 
barn in flames ! Ten to one, those who 
have enjoyed the most sunshine will be 
the first to forsake, censure and reproach. 
Friendship, based entirely on self, ends in 
desertion the moment the selfish ends are 
accomplished or frustrated. 



" Disguise bo near the truth doth seem to run 
'Tis doubtful whom to seek or whom to shun ; 
Nor kuow we when to spare or when to strike, 
Our friends and foes they seem so much alike." 

Friendship is a flower that blooms in 
all seasons ; it may be seen flourishing on 
the snow-capped mountains of Northern 
Russia, as well as in more favored valleys 
of sunny Italy, everywhere cheering us 
by its exquisite and indescribable charms. 
No surveyed chart, no national boundary 
line, no rugged mountain or steep declin- 
ing vale put a limit to its growth. Wher- 
ever it is watered with the dews of kind- 
ness and affection, there you may be sure 
to find it. Allied in closest companion- 
ship with its twin-sister, charity, it enters 
the abode of sorrow and wretchedness, 
and causes happiness and peace. It 
knocks at the lonely and disconsolate heart, 
and speaks words of encouragement and 
joy. Its all powerful influence hovers 
over contending armies and unites the 
deadly foes in the closest bonds of sym- 
pathy and kindness. Its eternal and 
universal fragrance dispels every poisoned 
thought of envy, and purifies the mind 
with a holy and priceless contentment 
which all the pomp and power of earth 
could not bestow. In vain do we look 
for this heavenly flower in the cold, cal- 
culating worldling ; the poor, deluded 
wretch is dead to every feeling of its 
ennobling virtue. In vain do we look 
for it in the actions of the proud and 
aristocratic votaries of fashion ; the love 
of self-display and of the fiilse and fleet- 
ing pleasures of the world, has banished 
it forever from their hearts. In vain do 
we look for it in the thoughtless and 
practical throng, who with loud laugh 



205 



MEMORY'S WILD WOOD. 



THE day, with its sandal? dipped in dew, 
Has passed through the evening's gold- 
en gates, 
And a single star in the cloudless blue 
For the rising moon in silence waits ; 
'^Miile the winds that sigh to the languid hours 
A lullaby breathe o'er the folded flowers. 

The lilies nod to the sound of the stream 
That ^^'inds along with lulling flow, 

And either awake, or half a-dream, 
I pass through the realms of long ago ; 

TVTiile faces peer vrith many a smile 

From the bowers of Memory's magical isle. 

There are joys and sunshine, sorrows and tears 
That check the path of life's April hours, 

And a longing wish for the coming years, 
That hope ever wreathes with the fairest 
flowers ; 

There are friendships guileless — love as bright 

And pure as the stars in halls of night. 

There are ashen memories, bitter pain, 
And buried hopes and a broken vow, 

And an aching heart by the reckless main, 
And the sea-breeze fanning a pallid brow ; 



And a wanderer on the shell-lined shore 
Listening for voices that speak no more. 

There are passions strong and ambitions "^ild, 
And the fierce desire to stand in the van 

Of the battle of life — and the heart of the child 
Is crushed in the breast of the struggling 
man ; 

But short are the regrets and few are the tears. 

That fall at the tomb of the banished years. 

There is a quiet and peace and domestic love, 
And joys arising from faith and truth, 

And a truth unquestioning, far above 
The passionate dreamings of ardent youth; 

And kisses of children on lips and cheek. 

And the parent's bliss which no tongue can 
speak. 

There are loved ones lost! There are little 
graves 
In the distant dell, 'neath protecting trees, 
'VMiere the streamlet winds, and the violet 
waves. 
And the grasses sway to the sighing breeze; 
And we mourn for the pressure of tender lips. 
And the light of eyes darkened in death's 
eclipse. 



THE CHESS-BOARD. 



MY little love, do you remember, 
Ere we were grown so sadly 

Those evenings in the bleak 
December, 
Curtain'd warm from the snowy weather, 
When you and I play'd chess togel^ier. 
Checkmated by each other's eyes ? 
Ah, still I see your soft wihite hand 
Hovering vs'arm o'er Queen and Knight. 
Brave Pawns in valiant battle stand : 
The double Castles guard the wings : 
The Bishop, bent on distant things, 
Moves sidling through the fight. 

Our fingers touch ; our glances meet, 
And falter ; falls your golden hair 
Against my cheek.; your bosom sweet 



Is hea^^ng. Down the field, your Queen 
Rides slow her soldiery all between, 

And checks me unaware. 

Ah me ! the little battle's done. 
Dispersed is all its chivalry ; 
Full many a move since then have we 
Mid Life's perplexing checkers made, 
And many a game with Fortune play'd, — 

A\Tiat is it we have won ? 

This, this at least - if this alone ; — 
That never, never, never more. 
As in those old still nights of yore 

(Ere we were grown so sadly wise), 

Can you and I shut out the skIcs, 
Shut out the world; and wintry weather, 

And eyes exchanging warmth with eyes, 
Play chess, as then we play'd, together! 

ROBERT BULWER LYTTON. 



206 



-4C 



:-*-iii„_X> 



SANCTIFIED FRIENDSHIP. 



c^ 




■^.. 



HAT which is most val- 
uable and lovely of life on 
earth — sanctified friend- 
ship — cannot be said to 
die with those we love ; 
but through their death, 
it is rather raised to a 
higher and more influ- 
ential life. By the 
transfer of our loved 
ones to heaven, our friendship becomes 
spiritualized and perpetuated. Our friends 
live in such circumstances, and in such 
relation to us, that their spirit, and faith, 
and love should exert more influence upon 
us than ever. ^' Being dead, they yet 
speak'' — speak to us in such tones as 
should only the more command attention 
and charm the ear. A holy life has been 
compared to a song — a song of praise, and 
there is something not only beautiful, but 
very striking in the simile. A song hath 
its lower and its higher notes, but they 
are all pitched to one key ; and so the 
life of the Christian hath its lower notes 
of sorrow and its higher notes of joy, but 
they, too, are set to the one key-note — the 
love of God in Christ ; and thus together 
they make up the melody of a holy life — 
a life in Christ. 

This melody does not cease with this 
life, nor does it cease to awaken its echoes 
in the heart of loved ones when the singer 
is lost to sight through death ; but it con- 
tinues to come floating down to us from 
the heavenly world like the song of the 
skylark, only rendered more sweet and 
enchanting by distance. I shall never 
forget my own first experience of the 
morning song of the English skylark. In 
my zeal as a traveler to see all that could 



.^ 



(5L^(i>^ 



be seen, I had arisen with the sun, and 
had wandered off alone over the hills sur- 
rounding the old city of Winchester and 
its grand cathedral. The rays of the ris- 
ing sun had changed the dew-drops intc 
diamonds, and the early breeze had 
awakened the lark both to song and to 
flight ; for as this almost spirit-bird begins 
to sing, it commences also mounting upon 
its wings, and mounting, it continues to 
sing, and singing it continues to mount 
higher and still higher, as if it had truly 
bid adieu to earth, as Jeremy Taylor has 
it, and had gone to mingle with the choirs 
of heaven. At last I could no longer see 
the bird. Its form was entirely lost to 
my vision, but its song was still heard ; 
its glad notes still came floating down 
from heaven like the music of an angel, 
and charmed my heart the more, since my 
eve could no lono;er discern the sino^er. 
Such is the song of a holy life ; for the 
Christian as he commences the song 
of the new life, commences his upward 
course, and his song grows sweeter as he 
rises ; and it is never so sweet, so moving, 
so attractive as when the siuwr is lost to 
human vision, and the notes come floating 
to us from the upper spirit-world. Listen! 
Can we not even now hear some notes of 
the life-song of some departed loved one ? 
If the ear is too dull to catch the spirit- 
strains, cannot the heart discern the 
melody, and is there not awakened within 
us kindred harmonies ? They tell us that 
when two lutes are attuned to the same 
key and placed near each other, when one 
is struck the other is heard to send forth 
notes and tones of kindred harmony. 
May not jur spirits be thus so nearly at- 
tuned to the same key with those of our 



207 



SANCTIFIED FRIENDSHIP, 



loved ones who have gone before to choirs of the redeemed ? Yes, ves, it is 

heaven, and may we not draw so near to even so. 

them in spiritual union and sympathy 

that, even while we are yet upon the 

earth, our souls may send forth occasional 

strains at least of that song which fills all 

hearts, and occupies all voices in the 



" Their song to lis descendeth ; 

The spirit "who iu them did sing, 
To lis his music lendeth ; 

His song in them, in us, is one ; 

We raise it high Ave send it on — 
The song that never endeth." 

J. STANFORD HOLMES* 



FAREWELL! BUT WHENEVER YOU WELCOME THE HOUR. 




AREWELL ! but ^'henever you welcome the hour 
That awakens the night-song of mirth in your bower, 
Then think of the friend who once welcomed it too. 
And forgot his own griefs to be happy with you. 
His griefs may return — not a hope may remain 
Of the few that have brighten'd his pathway of pain — 
But he ne'er will forget the bright vision that threw 
Its enchantment around him while lingering with yoUo 

And still on that evening, when pleasure fills up 
To the highest top-sparkle each heart and each cup. 
Where'er my path hes, be it gloomy or bright, 
My soul, happy friends ! shall be with you that night- 
Shall join in your revels, your sports, and your wiles, 
And return to me beaming all o'er with your smiles; 
Too blest if it tells me that, mid the gay cheer. 
Some kind voice had murmur'd, " I wish he were here !" 

iLet Pate do her worst, there are relics of Long, long be mv heart with such memories 

joy, fill'd! 

Bright dreams of the past, which she cannot Like the vase in which roses have once been 

destroy ! distill'd ; 

Vhich come in the night-time of sorrow and You may break, j^ou may ruin the vase if you 

care, will, 

-Ed Dring back the features that joy used to But the scent of the roses will hang round it 

wear. still. thomas moore. 




^/^pf ^p^ 



208 




HAKMUNY 




210 




BY -AND -BYE. 



WHAT ^vill it matter by-and bye, 
Whether my path below was bright, 
Whether it wound, through dark or 
light, 
Under a gray or golden sky, 
When I look on it by-and-bye ? 

What will it matter by-and-bye, 

Whether unhelped I toiled alone, 

Dasliing my foot against a stone. 

Missing the charge of the angel high, 

Bidding me think of the by-and-bye? 

What will it matter by-and-bye. 
Whether with dancing joy I went 
Down hrough the years with a gay content, 
Kever believing — nay, not I, 
Tears would ha sweeter by-and-bye? 

What will it matter by-and-bye, 

Whether with cheek to cheek I've lain. 
Close to the pallid angel, Pain, 



Soothing myself with sob and sigh — 
''AH will be elsewhere by-and-bye?" 

What Avill it matter? Xaught if I 
Onh' am sure the way I've trod, 
Gloomy or gladdened, leads to God, 

Questioning not of the how, the why, 

If I luit reach Him by-and-1»yc. 

Wliat will I care for tlie unshared sigh, 

If, in my fear of lapse or fall, 

Close I have clung to Christ through all. 
Mindless how rough the road might lie, 
Sure He will smoothen it l)y-and-bye? 

What will it matter by-and-l»yo ? 
Nothing but this — That jtn' or ]>ain 
Lifted me skyward — hel})ed to gain, 
Whether through rack, or smile, t)r sigh, 
Heaven — home — all in all — bv-and-bve! 



MRS. r R !■: s T o N 



211 






Shut in by garden^ lake, an 
Avood, 
Apart from all the busy world, 

A queenly mansion stood. 
And honour, power, and pride of 
birth, 
And riches great the owner had. 
But never a child to bless his home, 
And he was sad 1 

Shut in by walls on every side, 
With never a peep of lake or 
wood, 
Amid the city's strife and din 

A little cottage stood. 
And poverty and grinding toil 

And many a want the owner had, 
But children dear to bless his 
home> 

And he was glad I 






ff 



O' 



212 



SUNSHINE. 



B '^^f^^ ^^^P ^""^ faith, in simshlne through 

On wintet nights we dream orbeauty soread 
In glory— God's smile on His labours shed : 
Nay ! what we miss, we often truly gain. 
Learning to measure joy by present pain : 
Our minds are by their verj' hunger fed : 
Love learns vast secrets from the silent 
dead : 
And emptiest loss is cup for fullest gain. 
The winter snows and rains, and tempests 
mad, 
But dress our summer bowers ii field and 
wood ; 
So let us take our blessings and be glad. 

"Without a single thought of coward mood — 
That who laughs now, to-morrow may be 
s ■— 
For il it too comes from. Godj and so is 
good 






-^r^ V 



FROM "morn till night John's hammer ran^ 
The tale of labour telling > 
But oft he marked, with envious ey^ 
Squire Hardy's cosy dweUing,. 
One day the Squire himself came by; 

**-My, horse has lost a shoe, John, 
And that's the least of all my cares, 

But cares don't come to you, Jolin. 
The lightning struck my barns last nigji£| 

My child near death is laid, Johii^ 
1^0 ! life is not what folks suppose, 
•lis not of joses made, John." 



And then the Squire rode sadly off!i 

John watched him in amazement. 
And, as he watched, two faces hriglit 

Peeped from the open casements 
He heard his wife's voice, sweet and loWi 

His baby's merry laughter; 
John gave his anvil such a blow^ 

It shook each smoky ,rafter. 
^^ I Avould not change with Squire/' said h&j 

" For .all his land and money ; 
Tliere's thorns for him as well as me. 

But not SUQh roses bonny !'.' 

FREDERICK' E: WEATHERLY. / 



/ 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. 



FORTH from ca curtained window, 
The glad light comes and goes; 
In the richly furnished chamber, 
The fitful fire-light glows ; 
But the woe of the stricken master — 
117/ o knows? 

Standing without on the pavement, 

Where the hitt^^r north wind blows, 
A Avoman leans, anguished and smitten. 



Wrapped np as it were in her woes 
But the hope of that weary spirit — 
Who knows? 

For often a grief falls the harder 

Ou one who has felt but few blows, 

When life still seems worth the living, 
When a scent is still left in the rose; 

But the hope of the earthly-stranded, 
Who knows ? 




WRECKED! 



*OSSED aloft on mighty billows, borne On towards the r()aring breakers, through the 
along in cruel glee, surf and through the foam, 

Speeds a good ship to destruction, o'er Speeds the good ship to destruction, speeds the 
the tempest-riven sea. good ship to her home. 

Hoary-crested, white with splendor, mounting Tn amongst the cruel breakers, wrestled for 
high with frenzied dash, with sinewy strength — 

Round the coast the waves are gleaming, lit Then a few poor spars and timbers, tossed 
up by the lightning flash. upon the shore at length; 

215 



WRECKED. 

Tossed upon the shore to linger, crushed and Drifted in among the breakers, hfted high 
useless, many a day, with angry roar ; 

Till another mighty tempest, pitying, bears Bruised and crushed, the sj^irit broken, cast 
the wreck away. a wreck upon the shore. 

So full often have I noticed men by nature There to lie in shame and anguish, raising not 

bold and brave, the head again, 

Tossed aloft 'mid Sorrow's tempest, buffeted Till in mercy comes Death's billow, hiding 

by wind and wave ; them and all their pain. 




A PRAYER FOR ONE IN AFFLICTION 



U 



I 



KNOW, Lord, that thy judg- 
ments are riu^ht, and that thou of 
very faithfulness hast caused me 
to be troubled'^ (Psalm cxix., 75); 
for " before I was afflicted I went astray, 
but now have I kept thy word" (Psalm 
cxix., 6). Blessed be thy goodness for 
afflicting me. 

I huiubly beg of thee, O merciful Fa- 
ther, fhat this affliction may strengthen 
my faith, which thou sawest ^vas growing 
weak ; fix my liope, which \vas staggering ; 
quicken my devotion, which was languish- 
ing; rekindle my charity, which was 
cooling; revive my zeal, wdiich was dying; 
confirm my obedience, wl'^'ch w^as waver- 
ing; recover my patience, wdiich was 
fainting; mortify my pride, which w^as 
presuming; and perfect my repentance, 
wliiih was daily decaying; for all these 
and the like infirmities to which my soul 
is exposed, O make thy affliction my 
cure! 

Grant, O my God, that this affliction 
thou hast in mercy laid on me may 
w^ean all my affections from the 
w^or'.d, which I was apt to grow too 
fond of; rescue me from those occa- 
sions of evil of which I Avas in danger ; 
secure me from those temptations which 
were ready to assault me; restrain me from 
those sins to Avliich my nature was strong- 



ly inclined; preserve me from all those 
abuses of health I am apt to incur; and 
purify my soul from all that dross, and 
from all those vicious propensions which 
either my impenitence has left behind, or 
which I have since contracted. 

O my God, let thy affliction produce 
my amendment, and all the happy effects 
in me which it is w^ont to do in thy chil- 
dren, and which thou in mercy dost design 
it should, and then continue thy affliction 
if it seem good in thy sight ; behold. Lord, 
happy is the man whom thou hast correct- 
ed (Job v., 7). 

What is best for me, O my God, I know 
not; my flesh desires deliverance fiom 
this distemper, and if it be thy pleasure, 
O Lord, deliver me; my spirit desires 
that thou only wouldst choose for me, 
because thou art my Father, and out of 
thy fatherly tenderness wilt be sure to 
choose what is best for .me. I resign my 
own will entirely to thine. Let me be 
enabled to say, after my gracious Saviour's 
example, "Father, if thou be willing, re- 
move this cup from me ; nevertheless, not 
my will, but thine be done/' 

Hear, Lord, and have compassion on 
me, for the merits and sufferings of Jesus 
Christ, whose perfect resignation may I 
always imitate. Amen. 

THOMAS KEN. 



216 




-^>^CONSOLATION.<^ 




OT always can we 
tell wlien the 
most vivid Uglit- 
ning and start- 
ling thunder are 
to come. Light 
clouds gather 
here and there, 
the sun is tem- 
p o r a r i 1 y ob- 
scured, nothing 
ominous appears 
in air or sky, 
when, quick as 
thought, the at- 
mosphere seems 
bursting with 
crash and peal 
and roar and 
fla.^hings of fire, that leave a wonder that 
everything is not shivered and aflame. 

Again the sun shines, and a light shower 
falls. Soon a rainbow's broad and bril- 
liant arch repeats itself on the inky clouds 
that bank the east. A little later suuset 
tints of surpassing beauty, pale-blue and 
amber, brown and gold, sea-green and 
rose, purple and gray, paint floating 
argosies of cloud that rise from the bosom 
of the west, linger at the north, like ships 
at anchor, then slowly pass from sight 
wliere the fading* arches had been. Long; 
rifts of clearer sky, like far-ofi^, soft- 
tinted seas, exquisite and of varying color, 
stretch beyond and between the shifting 
fleet. 

Some of the saddest experiences of life 
come without premonition. Yesterday 
life went well, hope was in the ascendant; 
it was easy to be content. To-day all is 



reversed ; the crushed heart can scarcely 
lift itself to pray ; speech seems paralyzed. 
It appears cruel that such calamity should 
be permitted when we might have been 
so happy. Was there not some way by 
which it could have been foreseen and 
avoided ? Where are life's compensations 
now? What are its ambitions worth in 
the face of this ? 

In other homes and in the busy streets 
move on, in close procession, life's hurry- 
ing cares. There is no pause with the 
w^orld at large because grief and desola- 
tion sit at our hearthstone. 

The clanging bells, from their high 
towers, call to w-orship and to prayer. 
Their voices are unutterably sad. They 
did not sound like this a week ago. A 
ripple of childish laughter floats into the 
lonely house. Across the street a proud 
father leads his innocent, sunny-haired 
boy. Further on a cheerful mother walks 
with her trio of little ones. The}^are not 
tearful, or anxious, or bereaved ; and their 
happiness, which yesterday would have 
made us glad, to-day smites us with d 
keen sense of contrast. Night comes on, 
with its gathering silence and shadow, 
and is even more dreadful than the day. 
Thinking of the loved dead at night, our 
thoughts, per force, take the gloom of the 
grave w^here their bodies lie; but Kature 
is tender and God is merciful, and there 
is sure to come with the triumphant dawn 
some bright and comforting thought of 
that morning-land where their souls are 
dwelling. 

For the saddest day some duty waits ; 
and when one would with foldt d hands 
keep idle company with grief, temporary 



17c 



217 



CONSOLATION. 



consolation comes unbidden. A little 
child, with its unceasing activity, its num- 
berless wants, its quick recovery from 
tears, its wonder that we can not be en- 
tirely consoled by its caresses and com- 
forted with its toys, — even this shallow 
comprehension of the storm that is beat- 
ing at one's heart, is better than to be left 
in uninterrupted communion with sadness. 

Whatever the loss, ours is not long a 
solitary case. To the one who has it to 
bear, every trial is a peculiar trial. When 
God's hand hath touched us we shrink 
and cry, " What have I done that this 
calamity should fall on me ? " We ques- 
tion if there " is any sorrow like unto our 
sorrow.^' If we take thought only of our 
own cross, it appears the heaviest of any. 
But whea we begin to recognize the losses 
and trials of others, and extend a helpful 
sympathy even beyond our family and 
household, we experience the blessedness 
of giving in a way to react upon and com- 
fort our own hearts. 

Our burdens, whether of bereavement 
or disappointment, or wrong or regret, 
weigh heavier or lighter at different times, 
according to our moods and occupations, 
or the want of them. We find some way 
to bear the grief we cannot escape and 
which in prospect we could not endure. 
Bitter, indeed, would be all chastening, if 
no good came of it. Who shall say that 
this rending of the soul, this breaking up 
of all the depths of our nature, this strain 
upon our capacities for suffering, is but 
the inevitable chance- work of existence ? 

What does it mean? " That the trial of 
your faith being much more precious than 
of gold that perisheth, though it be tried 
with fire, might be found unto praise, and 
honor, and glory, at the appearing of 
Jesus Christ.'^ Were we perfect in sym- 
pathy ? Was our charity unfailing ? 
Ijacked we not in all directions that sym- 



metry of faith and purity of practice 
needed to effect a resemblance to the 
divine model? Would we be strong? We 
must often be put to the trial of our 
strength. Covet we the best gifts ? They 
are not granted to the undisciplined. 

We ^4'ise on stepping-stones of our dead 
selves to higher things." No one soul is 
so obscure that God does not take thought 
for its schooling. The sun is the central 
light of the universe, but it has a mission 
to the ripening corn and the purpling 
clusters of the vine. The sunshine that 
comes filtering through the morning mists, 
with healing in its wings, and charms all 
the birds to singing, should have, also, a 
message from God to sad hearts. No soul 
is so grief-laden that it may not be lifted 
to sources of heavenly comfort by recog- 
nizing the Divine love in the perpetual 
recurrence of earthly blessings : 

" The night is mother of the day, 

The winter of the spring , 
And even upon old decay 

The greenest mosses cling. 
Behind the cloud the star-light lurks ; 

Through showers the sunbeams fall ; 
For God, Avho loveth all his works, 

Hath left his hope with all." 

MARY H. HOUGHTON. 



IN THE SHADOW. 

^UR brightest fancies serve as rays 
That many a dusty mote dis- 
close, 

Or play as summer lightning plays 
And gathering darkness darker shows. 

As mists from smoothest waters rise, 
As reddened leaves must soonest fall, 

So tears will stream from calmest eyes, 
So Misery comes at Pleasure's pall. 

Our sky shows darkest through the ri jB ; 

Our spirits breathe infected air ; 
The dust we are about us lifts, 

And rises with our purest prayer. 

JACOB A. HOEKSTRA. 




218 



LAMENT FOR THE DEAD. 




YNO. — The wind and the rain 
are past ; calm is the noon of 
day. The clouds are divided 
in heaven; over the green 
hills flies the inconstant sun; 
and through the stony vale 
comes down the stream of the hill. Sweet 
are thy murmurs, O stream ! but more 
sweet is the voice I hear. It is the voice 
of Alpin, the son of song, mourning for 
the dead. Bent is his head of age; red 
his tearful eye. Alpin, thou son of song, 
why alone on the silent hill ? Why com- 
plainest thou, as a blast in the wood ; as a 
?7ave on the lonely shore ? 

Aljnn. — My tears, O Ryno ! are for the 
dead ; my voice for those that have passed 
away. Tall thou art on the hill; fair 
among the sons of the vale ; but thou shalt 
fall like Morar ; the mourner shall sit on 
thy tomb. The hills shall know thee no 
more; thy bow shall lie in the hall un- 
strung. 

Thou wert swift, O Morar ! as a roe on 
the desert; terrible as a meteor of fire. 
Thy wrath was as the storm ; thy sword 
in battle, as lightning in the field. Thy 
voice was like a stream after rain ; like 
thunder on distant hills. Many fell by 
thy arm ; they were consumed in the flames 
of thy wrath ; but when thou didst return 
from war, how peaceful was thy brow! 
Thy face was like the sun after rain ; like 
the moon in the silence of night; calm 
as the breast of the lake when the loud 
wind is laid. 

Narrow is thy dwelling now ; dark the 
place of thine abode. With three steps I 
compass thy grave, O thou, who wast so 
great before. Four stones, with their 
heads of moss, are the only memorial of 
thee. A tree with scarce a leaf, long grass 
which whistles iiji the wind, mark, to the 



hunter's eye, the grave of the mighty 
Morar. Morar ! thou art low indeed. 
Thou hast no mother to mourn thee ; no 
maid with her tears of love. Dead is 
she that brought thee forth ; fallen is the 
daughter of Morglan. 

Who on his staff is this ? Who is this, 
whose head is white with age, whose eyes 
are red with tears, who quakes at every 
step? It is thy father, O Morar! the 
father of no son but thee. He heard of 
thy fame in war; he heard of foes dis- 
persed ; he heard of Morar^s renown : why 
did he not hear of his wound ? Weep, 
thou father of Morar I weep ; but thy son 
heareth thee not. 

Deep is the sleep of the dead, low their 
pillow of dust. No more shall he hear 
thy voice, no more awake at thy call. 
When shall it be morn in the grave, to 
bid the slumberer awake ? Farewell, thou 
bravest of men, thou conqueror in the 
field ; but the field shall see thee no more, 
nor the dark wood be lightened with the 
splendor of thy steel. Thou hast left no 
son ; but the song shall preserve thy name. 
Future times shall hear of thee ; they shall 
hear of the fallen Morar. 

MACPHERSON. 



THE BRIGHT SIDE. 

THERE is many a rest in the road of 
life, 
If we only would stop to take it, 
And many a tone from the better 
land, 
If the querulous heart would wake it ! 
To the sunny soul that is full of hope. 

And whose beautiful trust ne'er faileth. 
The grass is green and the flowers are bright, 
Though the wintry storm prevaileth. 

Better to hope, though the elor.ds liang 1o\t, 

And to keej) the eyes still liiUnl ; 
For the sweet blue sky will soon pee]) through, 



219 



THE BRIGHT SIDE. 



When the ominous clouds are rifted I 
There was never a night -without a day, 

Or an evening without a morning, 
And the darkest hour, as the proverb goes, 

Is the hour before the da^NTiing. 

There is many a gem, in the path of Ufe, 

Which we pass in our idle pleasure, 
That is richer far than the jewelled crown. 

Or the miser's hoarded treasure : 
it may be the love of a little child, 

Or a mother's prayers to Heaven ; 
Or only a beggar's grateful thanks 

For a cup of water given. 

Better to weave in the web of life 

A bright and golden filling, 
And to do God's will with a ready heart, 

And hands that are swift and willing. 
Than to snap the delicate, slender threads 

Of our curious lives asunder, 
And then blame Heaven for the tangled ends. 

And sit, and grieve, and wonder. 

M. A. KIDDER. 



"THEY'RE DEAR FISH TO ME." 



T 



HE farmer's wife sat at the door, 
A pleasant sight to see ; 
And blithesome were the wee, wee 
bairns 
That play'd around her knee. 

When, bending 'neath her hea\y creel, 

A poor fish-wife came by. 
And, turning from the toilsome road. 

Unto the door drew nigh. 

She laid her burden on the green. 

And spread its scaly store, 
With trembling hands and pleading words 

She told them o'er and o'er. 

But lightly laugh'd the young guidwife, 

"We're no sae scarce o' cheer; 
Tak up your creel, and gang your ways, — 

I'll buy nae fish sae dear." 

Bending beneath her load again, 

A w^eary sight to see ; 
Eight sorely sighed the poor fish-wife, 

*' They're dear fish to me ! 

"Our boat was oot ae fearfa' night. 

And when the storm blew o'er, 
My husband, and my three brave sons. 

Lay corpses on the shore. 



" I've been a wife for thirty years, 

A childless widow three ; 
I maun buy them now to sell again, — 

They're dear fish to me ! " 

The farmer's wife turn'd to the door, — 

"WTiat was't upon her cheek ? 
What was there rising in her breast. 

That then she scarce could speak ? 

She thought upon her ain guid man, 

Her lightsome laddies three ; 
The woman's words had pierced her heart,— 

"They're dear fish to me ! " 

"Come back," she cried, with quivering voice 

And pity's gathering tear; 
" Come in, come in, my poor woman, 

Ye're kindly welcome here. 

*' I kentna o' your aching heart, 

Your w^eary lot to dree ; 
I'll ne'er forget your sad, sad words : 

* They're dear fish to me ! ' " 

Ay, let the happy-hearted learn 

To pause ere they deny 
The meed of honest toil, and think 

How much their gold may buy, — • 

How much of manhood's wasted strength, 

WTiat woman's misery, — 
What breaking hearts might swell the cry • 

"They're dear fish to me ! " 



THE RAINY DAY. 

^^HE day is cold, and dark and dreary ; 
^CJ It rains, and the wind is never weary; 
The vine still clings to the moldering 
wall. 
But at every gust the dead leaves fall, 
And the day is dark and dreary. 

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary. 
It rains, and the wind is never weary ; 
My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past. 
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast. 
And the days are dark and dreary. 

Be still, sad heart ! and cease repining 
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining 
Thy fate is the common fate of all, 
Into each life some rain must fjill. 
Some days must be dark and dreary. 

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 



220 



^^t>:i 



HOME SHADOV^S. 



?r 




weaving 
about our children in the home; whether 
we ever ask ourselves, if, in the far future, 
when we are dead and gone, the shadow 
our home casts now will stretch over them 
for bane or blessing. It is possible we 
are full of anxiety to do our best, and 
to make our homes sacred to the children. 
We want them to come up right, to turn 
out good men and women, to be an honor 
and praise to the home out of which they 
sprang. But this is the pity and the dan- 
ger, chat, while we may not come short in 
any real duty of father and mother, we 
may yet cast no healing and sacramental 
shadow over the child. Believe me, 
friends, it was not in the words he said, in 
the pressure of the hand, in the kiss, that 
the blessing lay Jesus gave to the little 
ones, when he took them in his arms. So 
it is not in these, but in the shadow of my 
innermost, holiest self; in that which is 
to us what the perfume is to the flower, a 
soul within the soul, — it is that which, to 
the child, and iu the home, is more than 
the tongue of men or angels, or prophecy 
or knowledge, or faith that will move 
mountains, or devotion that will give the 
body to be burned. I look back with 
wonder on that olden time, and ask my- 
self how it is that most of the things, I 
suppose my father and mother built on 



|:1^ 



R I E N D S, especially to mould me to a right manhood 
I wonder are forgotten and lost out of my life. But 
whether the thing they hardly ever thought of, — 
we have the sh;.dow of blessing cast by the home; 
any deep the tender unspoken love; the sacrifices 
conscious- made, and never thought of, it was so 
nessofthe natural to make them; ten thousand little 
shadows things, so simple as to attract no notice, 
we are and yet so sublime as I look back at 
them, — they fill my heart still and always 
with tenderness, when I remember them, 
and my eyes with tears. All these things, 
and all that belong to them, still come 
over me, and cast the shadow that forty 
years, many of them lived in a new world, 
cannot destroy. 

I fear, few parents know what a su- 
preme and holy thing is this shadow cast 
by the home, over, especially, the first 
seven years of this life of the child. 1 
think the influence that comes in this way 
is the very breath and bread of life. J 
may do other things for duty or principle 
or religious training; they are all, by com- 
parison, as when I cut and trim and train 
a vine ; and, when I let the sun shine and 
the rain fall on it, the one may aid the 
life; the other is the life. Steel and 
string are each good in their place; but 
what are they to sunshine? It is said 
that a child, hearing once of heaven, and 
that his father would be there, replied, 
" Oh ! th^n, I dinna want to gang.'' He 
did but express the holy instinct of a child, 
to whom the father may be all that is good, 
except just goodness, — be all any child can 
want, except what is indispensable — that 
gracious atmosphere of blessing in the 
healing shadow it cast«, without which 
even heaven would come to be intolerable. 



ROBERT COLLYER, D, 



'221 



SORROW FOR THE DEAD. 



f^jjy HE sorrow for the dead is the only 
^1 sorrow from which we refuse to 
^JU be divorced. Every other wound 

^9 we seek to heal, every other afflic- 
tion to forget ; but this wound we consider 
it a duty to keep open, this affliction we 
cherish and brood over in sohtude. Where 
is the mother who would willingly forget 
the infant that perished like a blossom 
from her arms, though every recollec.tion 
is a pang? Where is the child that would 
willingly forget the most tender of parents, 
though to remember be but to lament ? 

Who, even in the hour of agony, would 
forget the friend over whom he mourns ? 
Who, even when the tomb is closing upon 
the remains of her he most loved, — when 
he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in 
the closing of its portal, — would accept of 
consolation that must be bought by for- 
getfulness ? No ! the love that survives 
the tomb is one of the noblest attributes 
of the soul. 

If it has its woes, it has likewise its de- 
lights ; and when the overwhelming burst 
of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of 
recollection, — when the sudden anguish 
and the convulsive agony over the present 
ruins of all that we most loved is softened 
away into pensive meditation on all that 
it was in the days of its lovehness, — who 
would root out such a sorrow from the 
heart? 

Though it may sometimes throw a pass- 
ing cloud over the bright hour of gayety, 
or spread a deeper sadness over the hour 
of gloom, yet who would exchange it even 
for the song of pleasure or the burst of 
revelry ? No ! there is a voice from the 
tomb sweeter than song. There is a re- 
membrance of the dead to which we turn 
even from the charms of the living. 

Oh, the grave ! the grave ! It buries 
every error, covers every defect, extin- 
guishes every resentment. From its peace- 
ful bosom spring none but fond regrets 
and tender recollections. Who can look 



upon the grave even of an enemy, and 
not feel a compunctious throb that he 
should ever have warred with the poor 
handful of earth that lies moldering before 
him? 

But the grave of those we loved, — what 
a place for meditation ! There it is that 
we call up in long review the whole history 
of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand 
endearments lavished upon us almost un- 
heeded in the daily intercourse of inti- 
macy ; there it is that we dwell upon the 
tenderness — the solemn, awful tenderness 
— of the parting scene. 

The bed of death, with all its stifled 
griefs, its noiseless attendants, its mute, 
watchful assiduities ; the last testimonies 
of expiring love; the feeble, fluttering, 
thrilUng — oh, how thrilling ! — pressure of 
the hand; the faint, faltering accents, 
struggling in death to give one more assur- 
ance of affection ; the last fond look of the 
glazing eye, turning upon us even from 
the threshold of existence. 

Ay, go to the grave of buried love, and 
meditate ! There settle the account with 
thy conscience for every past benefit un- 
requited, every past endearment unre- 
garded, of that departed being who can 
never — never — never return to be soothed 
by thy contrition ! 

If thou art a child, and hast ever added 
a sorrow to the soul or a furrow to the 
silvered brow of an affectionate parent, — 
if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused 
the fond bosom that ventured its whole 
happiness in thy arms to doubt one mo- 
ment of thy kindness or thy truth ; if thou 
art a friend, and hast ever wronged, in 
thought or word or deed, the spirit that 
generously confided in thee ; if thou art a 
lover, and hast ever given one unmerited 
pang to that true heart which now lies 
cold and stiU beneath thy feet; then be 
sure that every unkind look, every ungra- 
cious word, every ungentle action, will 
come thronging back upon thy memory 



222 



SORROW FOR THE DEAD. 



and knocking dolefully at thy soul ; then 
be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing 
and repentant on the grave, and utter the 
unheard groan and pour the unavailing 
tear ; more deep, more bitter, because un- 
heard and unavailing. 

Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and 
strew the beauties of nature about the 
grave ; console thy broken spirit, if thou 
canst, with these tender yet futile tributes 
of regret ; but take warning by the bitter- 
ness of this thy contrite affliction over 
the dead, and henceforth be more faithful 
and affectionate in the discharge of thy 
duties to the li^dnoj. 



WASHINGTON IRVING 



THE HOUSE IS DARK AKD DREARY. 

THE house is dark and dreary, 
And my heart is full of gloom ; 
But out of doors, in blessed air, 
The sun is warm, the sky is fair. 
And the flowers are still in bloom. 

A moment ago in the garden 

I scattered the shining dew : 
The wind was soft in the swaying trees, 
The morning-glories were full of bees. 
And straight in my face they flew I 

Yet I left them unmolested. 

Draining their honey-wine, 
And entered the weary house again, 
To sit, as now, by a bed of pain. 

With a fevered hand in mine. 

RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 



THE CONTRAST. 

N the parlor, singing plaj-ing, 

Round me like a sunbeam straying, 
All her life with joy o'erladen, 
Is a radiant little maiden. 
Constant love her cares beguihng, 
Shields her from sin's dread defiling; 
Sheltered safe from worldly rudeness, 
Grows she in her native goodness. 
Every mom brings fond caressing, 



Every night brings earnest blessing ; 
So her heart gets sweeter, purer. 
And her steps in virtue surer. 

In the street, when storms are sighing, 
Is a child deserted, crying; 
Poor lost lamb ! with plaintive bleating 
All my sympathy entreating. 
No home's holy loves enfold her, 
No protecting arms uphold her ; 
And the voices that should guide her 
Utter only tones that chide her. 
O'er her spirit's waste and blindness 
Falls no ray of sa\ing kindness ; 
Wandering thus in earth's dark placess. 
Sin her tender soul embraces. 

Then I know that radiant maiden 
All whose life vnXYi love is laden. 
Only love saves her from danger 
And the fate of this lost stranger ! 



P L U M M E R 



SUKSHIKE FOR THE SORROWING. 



t_n>fMtMkn_5 








(VERY minister, as he runs his 
eye over his congregation, sees 
the black badge of sorrow in 
every part of the house. Yet 
many of the deepest and sorest 
griefs of the heart do not hoist 
any outward signal of distress. 
For who ever puts on crape for a family 
disgrace, or a secret heartache, or loss of 
character, or an acute contrition for sin, or 
a backsHding from Christ ? Set it down 
as a fact that God sees ten-fold more sor- 
row than the human eye ever detects. 

What a clear streak of sunshine our 
Lord let into this legion of sorrowing 
hearts when he pronounced that wonder- 
ful benediction : " Blessed are they that 
mourn ! " Perhaps some poor GaUlean 
mother who came up that day to hear 
Jesus of Nazareth, with her eyes red from 
weeping over a lost child, whispered to 
herself: " That is for me; I am a mourn- 
er." " Ah ! " thougiit some penitent sin- 
ner who felt the plague of his guilty heart, 
" that means me ; I am in trouble to-day." 
It did mean them. Christ's religion is the 
223 



SUNSHINE FOR THE SORROWING. 



first and only religion ever known in this 
world which recognizes human sorrow, 
and has any sunshine of consolation for 
broken hearts. Do cold-blooded infidels 
realize that fact when they attempt to de- 
stroy men's faith in the Gospel of Calvary ? 
We are apt to limit this benediction of 
Jesus to one class of sufferers. We take 
this sweet Httle text into sick rooms, or to 
funerals, or into the lonely group which 
gather around a mother's deserted chair 
or a little empty crib. It was meant for 
them. It has fallen upon such stricken 
hearts like the gentle rain upon the new- 
mown grass. Many of us know full weU 
how good the balm felt when it touched 
our bruised and bleeding hearts. I remem- 
ber how, when one of my own '' bairns '^ 
was lying in his fresh-made grave, and 
another one was so low that his crib 
seemed to touch against a tomb, I used to 
keep murmuring over to myself Wesley's 
matchless lines : 

"Xeaye, oh leave me not alone, 
Still support and comfort me !" 

In those days I was learning (what we 
pastors have to learn) just how the arrow 
feels when it enters, and just how to sym- 
pathize with our people in their bereave- 
ments. Somehow a minister is never fully 
ready to emit the fragrance of sympathy 
for others until he has been bruised him- 
iself. There is a great lack about aU 
Christians who have never suffered. Paul 
abounded in consolation because he had 
known sharp tribulations in his own ex- 
perience. AVhat a precious spilling of his 
great sympathetic heart that was when he 
overflowed into that subhme passage 
which ends the fourth and begins the fifth 
chapter of his Epistle to the Corinthians. 
The outward man perishing — the inward 
man renewed day by day. The affliction 
growing "light" in proportion to the 
transcendent weight of the eternal glory ! 
The old tent dropping to pieces and the 
heavenly mansion looming up so glori- 
ously that his homesick soul longed to 



quit the fluttering tent, and to " be present 
with the Lord." These are indeed mighty 
consolations to bear with us into our 
houses of mourning. They are the fore- 
tastes which make us long for the full feast 
and the seraphic joys of the marriage- 
supper of the Lamb. We experience what 
the old godly negro, "Uncle Johnson," 
did when he said : " Oh, yes, massa, I 
feel bery lonesome since my Ellen died, 
but den de Lord comes round ebery day 
and gibs me a tasie ob de ki?igdom^ jus' as a 
nus would wid de spoon ; but oh, how I 
wants to get holds ob de whole dish ! " 

REV. THEO. L. CUYLER, 



THE THREE FISHERS. 

f HREE fishers went sailing away to the 
west — 
Away to the west as the sun went 
down ; 
Each thought on the woman who loved him 
the best, 
And the children stood watching them out 
of the town ; 
For men must work, and women must weep ; 
And there's little to earn, and many to keep, 
Though the harbor bar be moaning. 

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower, 
And they trimm'd the lamps as the sun 
went down ; 
They look'd at the squall, and they look'd at 
the shower, 
And the night-rack came rolling up, ragged 
and brown ; 
But men must work, and women must weep, 
Though storms be sudden, and waters deep. 
And the harbor bar be moaning. 

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands 
In the morning gleam as tide went down. 
And the women are weeping and wringing 
their hands 
For those who will never come home to the 
town ; 
For men must work, and women must weep — . 
And the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep — • 
And good-bye to the bar and its moaning. 

CHARLES KINGSLEY. 



224 






DBAII^H of UwmUE HBIiL, 





HE Avas dead. No sleep 
50 beautiful and calm, so 
free from trace of pain, 
so fair to look upon. 
She seemed a creature 
fresh from the hand of 
God, and waiting for the 
breath of life ; not one 
who had lived and suf- 
fered death. Her couch 
was dressed with here 
aiitl there some winter- 
berries and green leaves, gathered in a 
spot she had been used to favor. ^^ When 
I die, put near me something that has 
loved the light, and had the sky above it 
always." Those were her words. 

She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, 
noble Xell was dead. Her little bird, a 
poor, slight thing, which the pressure of a 
finger would have crushed, was stirring 
nimbly in its cage ; and the strong heart 
of its child-mistress was mute and motion- 
less forever. Where were the traces of 
her early cares, her sufferings, and 
fatigues ? All gone. Sorrow was dead, 
indeed, in her ; but peace and perfect hap- 
piness were born — imaged — in her tran- 
quil beauty and profound repose. And 
still her former self lay there, unaltered 
in this change. 

Yes ; the old fireside had smiled upon 
that same sweet face, which had passed, 
like a dream, through haunts of misery 



of 



the poor 
evening. 



and care. At the door 
schoolmaster on the summer 
before the furnace fire upon the cold wet 
night, at the same still bedside of the 
dvinor bov, there had been the same mild, 
lovely look. 

The old man took one languid arm in 

his, and held the small hand to his breast 

18C ^ 



for warmth. It was the hand she had 
stretched out to him with her last smile, 
— the hand that had led him on through 
all their wanderings. Ever and anon he 
pressed it to his lips ; then hugged it tc 
his breast again, murmuring that it was 
warmer now ; and, as he said it, he looked 
in agony to those who stood around, as if 
imploring them to help her. 

She was dead, and past all help or need 
of it. The ancient rooms she had seemed 
to fill with life, even while her own was 
waning fast, the garden she had tended, 
the eyes she had gladdened, the noiseless 
haunts of many a thoughtful hour, the 
paths she had trodden, as it were, but 
yesterday, could know her no more. 

She had been dead two days. They 
were all about her at the time, knowing 
that the end was drawing on. She died 
soon after daybreak. They had read and 
talked to her in the earlier portion of 
the night, but as the hours crept on, she 
sunk to sleep. They could tell, by what 
she faintly uttered in her dreams, that 
they were of her journey ings with the 
old man : they were of no painful scenes, 
but of those who had helped and used 
them kindly ;. for she often said " God 
bless you I " with great fervor. Waking, 
she never wandered in her mind but once; 
and that was at beautiful music which she 
said was in the air. God knows. It may 
have been. 

Opening her eyes at last from a very 
quiet sleep, she begged that they would kiss 
her once again. That done, she turned to 
the old man, with a lovely smile upon her 
face, — such, they said, as they had never 
seen, and never could forget, — and clung 
with both arms about his neck. They did 
not know that she was dead at first. 



i:::o 



DEATH OF LITTLE NELL, 



She had spoken very often of the two 
sisters, who, she said, were like dear 
friends to her. She wished they could 
be told how much she had thought about 
them and how she had w^atched them as 



the day came on which must 'remove her 
in her earthly shape from earthly eyes 
forever, he led him away, that he might 
not know when she was taken from him. 
And now the bell— the bell she had so 



tnem ana now sne uau. w<xvk.^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ -iv j. ^j 

theywalked together bytheriver-side. She often heard by mghtand day, andlistened 



would like to see poor Kit, she had often 
said of late. She wished there was some- 
body to take her love to Kit. And even 
then she never thought or spoke about 
him but with something of her old, clear, 
merry laugh. 

For the rest, she had never murmured 
or complained ; but, with a quiet mind, 
and manner quite unaltered, save that she 
every day became more earnest and more 
grateful to them, she faded like the light 
upon the summer's evening. 

The child who had been her little friend 
came there, almost as soon as it was day, 
with an offering of dried flowers, which 
he asked them to lay upon her breast. 
He begged hard to see her, saying that he 
would be very quiet, and that they need 
not fear his being alarmed, for he sat 
alone by his younger brother all day long 
when he was dead, and had felt glad to be 
so near him. 

They let him have his wish ; and, in- 
deed, he kept his w^ord ; and w^as, in his 
childish way, a lesson to them all. Up 
to that time the old man had not spoken 
ouce,— except to her,— or stirred from the 
bedside. But, when he saw her little 
favorite, he was moved as they had not 
seen him yet, and made as though he 
would have come nearer. 

Then, pointing to the bed, he burst into 
tears for the first time; and they w^o 
stood by, knowing that the sight of this 
child had done him good, left them alone 
together. Soothing him with his artless 
talk of her, the child persuaded him to 
take some rest, to walk abroad, to do 
almost as he desired him. And when 



to with solemn pleasure, almost as a liv- 
ing voice— rung its remorseless toll for 
her, so young, so beautiful, so good. 
Decrepit age, and vigorous ^iife and bloom- 
ing youth, and helpless infancy, poured 
forth — on crutches, in the pride of health 
and strength, in the full blush of promise, 
in the mere dawn of life— to gather round 
her tomb. • 

Old men w^ere there, whose eyes were 
dim and senses failing; grandmothers, 
who might have died ten years ago and 
still been old; the deaf, the blind, the 
lame, the palsied, the living dead, in many 
shapes and forms, w^ere there, to see the 
closiug of that early grave. Along the 
crowded path they bore her now, pure as 
the newly-fallen snow that covered it, 
whose day on earth had been as fleeting. 

Under that porch, where she had sat 
when Heaven in its mercy brought her to 
that peaceful spot, she passed again ; and 
the old church received her in its quiet 
shade. They carried her to an old nook, 
w^here she had many and many a time sat 
musing, and laid their burden softly on 
the pavement. The light streamed on it 
through the colored window,— a window 
where the boughs of trees were ever rust- 
ling in the summer, and where the birds 
sang sweetly all day long. With every 
breath of air that stirred among those 
branches in the sunshine, some trembling, 
changing light would fall upon her grave. 
Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to 
dust ! Many a young hand dropped in 
its little wreath ; many a stifled sob was 
heard. Some— and they were not a few 
—knelt down. All were sincere and 



226 



DEATH OF LITTLE NELL. 

truthful in their sorrow. The service innocent aud young, for every fragile form 
done, the mourners stood apart, and the from which he lets the panting spirit free 
villagers closed round to look into the a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy 

chanty, and love, to walk the world and 
bless it with their light. Of every tear 
that sorrowing mortals shed on such green 
graves some good is born, some gentler 
nature comes. In the Destroyer's steps 
there spring up bright creations that defy 
his power ; and his dark path becomes a 
way of light to Heaven. 

CHARLES DICKENS. 



grave before the stone should be replaced. 

One called to mind how he had seen her 

sitting on that very spot, and how her 

foook had fallen on her lap and she was 

gazing with a J)eusive face upon the sky. 

Another told hoAV he had wondered much 

that one so delicate as she should be so 

bold ; how she had never feared to enter 

the church alone at night, but had loved 

to linger there when all was quiet, and 

even to climb the tower-stair with no 

more light than that of the moon-rays 

stealing through the loopholes in the thick 

old walls. 

A whisper went about among the old- 
est there that she had seen and talked 
with angels; and wlien they called to 
mind how she had looked and spoken, and 
her early death, some thought it might 
be so indeed. Thus coming to the 
grave in little knots, and glancing down, 
and giving place to others, and falling off 
in whispering groups of three or four, the 
church was cleared in time of all but the 
sexton and the mourning friends. 

Then, when the dusk of evening had 
come on, and not a sound disturbed the 
sacred stillness of the place, when the 
bright moon poured in her light on tomb 
and monument, on pillar, wall, and arch, 
and most of all, it seemed to them, upon 
her quiet grave, — in that calm time when 
all outward things and inward thoughts 
teem with assurances of immortality, and 
worldly hopes and fears are humbled in 
the dust before them,— then, with tran- 
quil and submissive hearts, they turned 
away, and left the child with God. 

Oh ! it is hard to take to heart the 
lesson that such deaths will teach ; but let 
no man reject it; for it is one that all 
must learn. When death strikes down the 



SUNSHINE AFTER STORM. 

THOUGH there be storm and tur- 
bulence on this earth, one would 
rise but little way, through the 
blackened air, before he would come to a 
region of calm and peace, where the stars 
shine unobstructed, and where there is no 
storm. And a little above our cloud, a 
little higher than our darkness, a little 
beyond our storm, is God's upper region 
of tranquil peace and calm. And when 
we have had the discipline of winter here, 
it will be possible for us to have eternal 
summer there. 

HENRY WARD BEECH ER, 



227 



ON ANOTHER'S SORROW. 

CAN I see another's woe, 
And not be in sorrow too ? 
Can I see another's grief, 
And not seek for kind relief? 

Can I see a falling tear, 
And not feel my sorrow's share? 
Can a father see his child 
Weep, nor be with sorrow fill'd ? 

Can a mother sit and hear 
An infani groan, an infiint fear ? 
No I no ! never can it be — 
Never, never can it be I 



ON ANOTHER'S SORROW, 



And can He who smiles on all, 
Hear the wren with sorrows small 
Hear tlie small bird's grief and care, 
Hear the woes that infants bear,— 

And not sit beside the nest, 
Pouring pity in their breast ? 
And not sit the cradle near, 
Weeping tear on infant's tear? 

And not sit both night and day, 
Wiping all our tears away ? 
Oh, no ! nevbi- can it be — 
Never, never can it bs 5 

He doth give His joy to all ; 

He becomes an infant small, 
He becomes a man of woe, 
He doth feel the son-oY\^ too. 

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh, 
And thy Maker is not nigh ; 
Think not thou canst weep a tear, 
And thy Maker is not near. 

Oh ! He gives to us His joy. 
That our griefs He may destroy. 
Till our grief is fled and gone 
He doth sit by us and moan. 

WILLIAM BLAKE. 



LIGHT AND DARK. 

COD doth checker his providences 
white and black, as the pillar of 
cloud had its light side and dark. 
Look on the light side of thy estate : 
who looks on the dark side of a landscape? 
Suppose thou art cast in a law suit — there 
is the dark side ; yet thou hast some land 
left — there is the light side. Thou hast 
sickness in thy body — there is the dark 
side ; but grace in thy soul — there is the 
light side. Thou hast a child taken away 
— there is the dark side; thy husband 
lives — there is the light side. God's prov- 
idences in this life are various, represent- 
ed by those speckled horses among the 
myrtle trees which were red and white 
(Zachariah, 1, 8); mercies and afflictions 



are interwoven; God doth speckle his 
work. '' Oh," says one, " I want such a 
comfort ; " but weigh all thy mercies in a 
balance, and that will make thee content. 
Look on the light side of your condition, 
and then all your discontent will easily 
be dispersed; do not pour upon your 
losses, but ponder upon your mercies. 
What ! wouldst thou have no cross at all? 
Why should one man think to have all 
good things, when he himself is good but 
in part ? Wouldst thou have no evil about 
thee? Thou art not fully sanctified in 
this life; how then thinkest thou to be 
fully satisfied ? Never look for perfection 
of contentment till there be perfection of 
grace, richard watson. 



WE KKOl HOT WHAT IS BEFORE US. 

KNOW not what shall befall me, 
God hangs a mist o'er my eyes. 
And each step in my onward path 
He makes new scenes to rise, 
And every joy He sends to me 
Comes as a sweet surprise. 

I see not a step before me 

As I tread on another year, 
But the past is still in God's keeping, 

The future His mercy shall clear. 
And what looks dark in the distance 

May brighten as I draw near. 

For perhaps the dreaded future 
Has less bitter than I think ; 

The T.ord may sweeten the waters 
Beiore I stoop to drink ; 

Or, if Marah must be Marah, 
He will stand beside its brink. 

It may be He has, waiting 

For the coming of my feet, 
Some gift of such rare value. 

Some joy so strangely sweet. 
That my lips shall only tremble 

With the thanks they cannot speak. 



MARY G. BRAINARD, 



228 



SHADOWS. 




^LIXY sick ones wish they were healthv ; 

How manv poor men wish they were wealthy ; 
How many ugly ones wish they were prettv ; 
How many stupid ones wish they were witrv- ; 
How many bachelors wish they were married ; 
How many Benedicts wish they had tarried. 
Single or double, life's full of trouble ; 
Riches are stabble, pleasure's a bubble ! 



MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN. 



WHEX chill November's surly blast 
Made fields and forests bare, 
One evening, as I wandered forth 
Along the banks of Ayr. 
I spied a man whose aged, seep 

Seemed weary, worn with care ; 
His face was furrowed o'er with years, 
And hoarv was his hair. 



lY. 
" Man ! while in thy early years, 

How prodigal of time, 
Mis-spending all thy precious hours. 

Thy glorious youthful prime I 
Alternate folUes take the sway; 

Licentious passions burn ; 
Which tenfold force gives Nature's law 

That Man was made to mourn. 



n. 
•* Young stranger, whither wandereet thou 

Began the reverend Sage : 
" Does thirst of wealth thy step constraui. 

Or youthful pleasure's rage ? 
Or haply, prest with cares and woes, 

Too soon thou hast began 
To wander forth, with me, to mourn 

The miseries of Man. 



" Look not alone on youthful prime. 

Or Manhood's active might ; 
Man then is useful to his kind, 

Supported in his right : 
But see him on the edge of life, 

With cares and sorrows worn; 
Then Age and Want— Oh ill-matched pair J-. 

Show Man was made to mourn. 



"The Sun that overhangs yon moors. 

Outspreading far and wide, 
Where hundreds labor to support 

A haughty lordling's pride : 
I've seen yon wear\- Winter-sun 

Twice forty times return, 
And every time has added proofs 

That Man was made to mourn. 



YI. 

" A few seem favorites of Fate, 

In Pleasm-e's lap carest ; 
Yet think not all the rich and great 

Are likewise truly blest. 
But, oh ! what crowds in ever)' land. 

All wretched and forlorn, 
Through wearj- Life this lesson learn. 

That Man was made to mourn. 



229 



MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN. 



vn. 
"Many and sharp the numerous ills 

Inwoven with our frame ; 
More pointed still we make ourselves 

Regret, Remorse, and Shame. 
And Man, whose heaven-directed face 

The smiling Love adorn, — 
Man's inhumanity to Man 

Makes countless thousands mourn I 



X. 

*' Yet let not this too much, my son, 

Disturb thy youthful breast ; 
This partial view of human-kind 

Is surely not the last ? 
The poor, oppressed, honest man, 

Had never sure, been born. 
Had there not been some recompense 

To comfort those that mourn I 





vni. 
" See yonder poor, o'erlabored wight. 

So abject, m-:ian, and vile, 
Who begs a brother of the earth 

To give him leave to toil ; 
And see his lordly fellow worm 

The poor petition spurn, 
Unmindful though a weeping wife 

And helpless offspring mourn. 



rx. 

"If I'm designed yon lordling's slave- 
By Nature's law designed — 

Why was an independent wish 
E'er planted in my mind ? 

If not, why am I subject to 
His cruelty, or scorn ? 

Or why has Man the will and power 
To make his fellow mourn ? 



XI. 

" Death ! The poor Man's dearest friend- 

The kindest and the best ! 
Welcome the hour my aged limbs 

Are laid with thee at rest ! 
The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow. 

From pomp and pleasure born ; 
But oh ! a blest relief to those 

Tliat weary-laden mourn." 

BURNS, 




::j 




•«- 



ADVERSITY. 



.3 



The good are better made by ill : — 
As odors crush 'd are sweeter still ! 




—Rogers. 



harp 
holds 
in its wires 
the possi- 
bihties o f 
noblest 
chords ; 
yet, if they be not struck, they must 
hang dull and useless. So the mind is 
vested with a hundred powers, that must 
be smitten by a heavy hand to prove 
themselves the offspring of divinity. 

Welcome, then, adversity! Thy hand 
is cold and hard, but it is the hand of a 
friend ! Thy voice is stern and harsh, but 
it is the voice of a friend ! There is some- 
thing sublime in the resolute, fixed pur- 
pose of suffering without complaining, 
which makes disappointment often better 
than success. 

As full ears load and lay corn, so does 
too much fortune bend and break the 
mind. It deserves to be considered, too, 
as another advantage, that affliction moves 
pity, and reconciles our very enemies ; 
but prosperity provokes envy, and loses 
us our very friends. Again, adversity is 
a desolate and abandoned state ; the gen- 
erality of people are like those infamous 
animals that live only upon plenty and 
rapine; and as rats and mice forsake a 
tottering house, so do these the falling 
man. He that has never known adver- 
sity is but half acquainted with others or 
with himself. Constant success shows 
us but one side of the world ; for as it 
surrounds us with friends who tell us only 
of our merits, so it silences those enemies 
from whom only we can learn our defects. 

Adversity, sage, useful guest. 
Severe instructor, but the best; 
It is from thee alone we know 
Justly to value things below. 



Adversity exasperates fools, dejecta 
cowards, draws out the faculties of the 
wise and industrious, puts the modest to 
the necessity of trying their skill, awes 
the opulent, and makes the idle industri- 
ous. A smooth sea never made a skillful 
mariner, neither do uninterrupted pros- 
perity and success qualify men for use- 
fulness and happiness. The storms of 
adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse 
the faculties, and excite the invention, 
prudence, skill, and fortitude of the voy- 
ager. The martyrs of ancient times, in 
bracing their minds to outward calami- 
ties, acquired a loftiness of purpose and 
a moral heroism worth a lifetime of soft- 
ness and security. 

It is good for man that he bear the yoke 
in his youth. Oaks are made hard by 
strong discipline. As a gladiator trained 
the body, So must we train the mind to 
self-sacrifice, "to endure all things," to 
meet and overcome difficulty and danger. 
We must take the rough and thorny roads 
as well as the smooth and pleasant ; and 
a portion at least of our daily duty must 
be hard and disagreeable ; for the mind 
cannot be kept strong and healthy in per- 
petual sunshine only, and the most dan- 
gerous of all states is that of constantly 
recurring pleasure, ease and prosperity. 

It seems as if man were like the earth. 
It cannot bask forever in sunshine. The 
snows of winter and frosts must come and 
work in the ground and mellow it to make 
them fruitful. A man upon whom con- 
tinuous sunshine falls is like the earth in 
August; he becomes parched and dry, 
and hard and close-grained. To some 
men the winter and spring come wlien 
they are young ; others are born in sum- 
mer and are only made fit to die by a 
winter of sorrow coming to them when 
they are middle-aged or old. 

It is not the nursling of wealtli or for- 
tune who has been dandled into man- 



231 



ADVERSITY. 



liood on the lap of prosperity, that car- 
ries away the world's honors, or wins its 
mightiest influence ; but it is rather the 
man whose earlier years were cheered by 
scarcely a single proffer of aid, or smile 
of approbation, and who has drawn fi'om 
adversity the elements of greatness. The 
*' talent " which prosperity " folded in a 
napkin," the rough hand of adversity 
shook out. 

The men who stand boldly for the de- 
fense of the truth, in the midst of the 
flood of errors that surround them, are 
not the gentlemen of lily fingers who 
have been rocked in the cradle of indul- 
gence and caressed in the lap of luxury ; 
but they are men whom necessity has 
called from the shade of retirement to 
contend under the scorching rays of the 
sun, with the stern realities of life with 
all its vicissitudes. It is good for a man 
that he bear the yoke in his youth. The 
gem cannot be polished without fiiction, 
nor man perfected without adversity. 

The patient conquest of difficulties 
which rise in the regular and legitimate 
channels of business and enterprise, is not 
only essential in securing the successes 
which you seek, but it is essential to the 
preparation of your mind, requisite for 
the enjoyment of your successes, and for 
retaining them when gained. 

Adversity is the trial of principle. 
"Without it a man hardly knows whether 
he is honest or not. Night brings out the 
stars as adversity shows us truths ; we 
never see the stars till we can see little or 
naught else ; and thus it is with truth. 
When you feel inchned to cry, just change 
your mind and laugh. Nothing dries 
sooner than tears. 

Adversity certainly has its uses, and 
very valuable ones too. It has been truly 
remarked that many a man, in losing his 
fortune, has found himself and ruined 
into salvation. Adversity flattereth no 
man. Oft from apparent ills our bless- 
ings rise. Who never fasts, no banquet 



e'er enjoys. In prosperity, be humble; 
in adversity, cheerful. If you have the 
blues, go and see the poorest and sickest 
families within your knowledge. To bear 
the sharp afflictions of life like men, we 
should also feel them like men. The 
darker the setting, the brighter the dia- 
mond. Probably we might often become 
reconciled to what we consider a hard lot 
by comparing ourselves with the many 
who want what we possess rather than 
with the few who possess what we want. 
He is happy whose circumstances suit his 
temper ; but he is happier who can suit 
his temper to his circumstances. There 
is a ^T.rtue in keeping up appearances. 
He is a fool that grumbles at every little 
mischance. Put the best foot forward, is 
an old and good maxim. Don't run 
about and tell acquaintances that you 
have been unfortunate ; peoj^le do not 
like to have unfortunate men for acquain- 
tances. If the storm of adversity whis- 
tles around you, whistle as bravely your- 
self; perhaps the two whistles may make 
melody. 



■O 



WEEP NO MORE. 

'EEP no more, nor sigh, nor groan, 
Sorrow calls no time that's gone; 

Violets pluck'd, the sweetest rain 
Makes not fresh nor grow again ; 
Trim thy locks, look cheerfully, 
Fate's hidden ends eyes cannot see; 
Joys as winged dreams fly fast, 
Why should sadness longer last ? 
Grief is but a wound to woe ; 
Gentlest fair one, mourn no mo. 

JOHN FLETCHER. 



Death's but a path that must be trod 
If man would ever pass to God. 

THOMAS PARXELL. 



232 



►es* 





E are joined together 
many of us, by a 
common experience. 
Many of us have met 
in each others' houses 
and in each others' 
company on j ust such 
errands of grief and 
sympathy and Chris- 
tian triumph as this. 
How many of us 
have sent children 
forward ; and how 
many of us feel to-day that all things are 
for our sakes ; and that those things which 
for the present are not joyous but grievous, 
nevertheless work in us the peaceable 
fruit of righteousness ! So we stand in 
what may be called a relationship of grief. 
We are knit together and brought into 
each others' company by the ministration 
of grief, made Christian and blessed. 

To be sure, if we were to ask this life 
what would be best, there is no father, 
there is no mother, who would not plead 
with all the strength which lies in natural 
affection, "Spare me and spare mine." 
For the outward man this is reasonable 
and unrebukable ; and yet if it be over- 
ruled by Him who loves us even better 
than He loves His own life, then there 
comes the revelation of another truth : 
namely, that the things which are seen are 
the unreal things, and that the real things 
are the things which are invisible. 

When our children that are so dear to 
us are plucked out of our arms, and car- 
ried away, we feel, for the time being, 
that we have lost them, because our body 
does not triumph ; but are they taken 
from our inward man ? Are they taken 
from that which is to be saved — the spirit- 



ual man ? Are they taken from memory ? 
Are they taken from love? Are they 
taken from the scope and reach of the 
imagination, which, in its sanctified form, 
is only another name for faith ? Do we 
not sometimes dwell with them more inti- 
mately than we did when they w^ere with 
us on earth ? The care of them is no 
longer ours, that love-burden we bear no 
longer, since they are with the angels of 
God and with God ; and we shed tears 
over what seems to be our loss ; but do 
tbey not hover in the air over our heads ? 
And to-day could the room hold them 
all? 

As you recollect, the background of the 
Sistine Madonna, at Dresden (in some 
respects the most wonderful picture of 
maternal love which exists in the world), 
for a long time was merely dark ; and an 
artist, in making some repairs, discovered 
a cherub's face in the grime of that dark 
background ; and being led to suspect 
that the picture had been overlaid by time 
and neglect, commenced cleansing it ; and 
as he went on, cherub after cherub 
appeared, until it was found that the 
Madonna was on a background made up 
wholly of little heavenly cherubs. 

Now, by nature motherhood stands 
against a dark background ; but that 
background being cleaned by the touch 
of God, and by the cleansing hand of faith, 
we see that the whole heaven is full of 
little cherub faces. And to-day it is not 
this little child alone that we look at, 
which we see only in the outward guise ; 
we look upon a background of children 
innumerable, each one as sweet to its 
mother's heart as this child has been to 
its mother's heart, each one as dear to the 
clasping arms of its father as this child 



233 



HOME BEREA J^EMENTS. 



has been to the clasping arms of its father ; 
and it is in good company. It is in a 
spring-land. It is in a suramer-world. 
It is with God. You have given it back 
to Him who lent it to you. 

Now, the giving back is very hard, but 
you cannot give back to God all that you 
received with your child. You cannot 
give back to God those springs of new and 
deeper affection which were awakened by 
the coming of this little one. You can- 
not give back to God the experiences 
which you have had in dwelling with 
your darling. You cannot give back to 
God the hours which, when you look 
upon them now, seem like one golden 
chain of linked happiness. 

You are better, you are riper, you are 
richer, even in this hour of bereavement, 
than you were. God gave ; and he has 
not taken away except in outward form. 
He holds, he keeps, he reserves, he 
watches, he loves. You shall have again 
that which you have given back to him 
only outwardly. 

Meanwhile, the key is in your hand ; 
it is not a black iron key ; it is a golden 
key of faith and of love. This little child 
has taught you to follow it. There will 
not be a sunrise or a sunset when you 
will not in imagination go through the 
gate of heaven after it. There is no door 
so fast that a mother's love and a father's 
love will not open it and follow a beloved 
child. And so, by its ministration, this 
child will guide you a thousand times into 
a realization of the great spirit-land, and 
into a faith of the invisible, which will 
make you as much larger as it makes you 
less dependent on the body, and more rich 
in the fruitage of the spirit. 

To-day, then, we have an errand of 
thanksgiving. We thank God for send- 
ing this little gift into this household. 
We thank God for the light which he 



kindled here, and which burned with s© 
pure a flame, and taught so sweet a lesson. 
And we thank God, that, when this child 
was to go to a better place, it walked so 
few steps, for so few hours, through pain. 
Men who look on the dark side shake the 
head, and say, " Oh, how sudden ! " but 
I say. Since it was to go, God be thanked 
that it was permitted to pass through so 
brief a period of suffering ; that there 
were no long weeks or months of gradual 
decay and then a final extinction ; that 
out of the fulness of health it dropped 
into the fulness of heaven, leaving its 
body as it lies before you to-day a thing 
of beauty. Blessed be God for such mercy 
in the ministration of sickness and of 
departure. 

I appreciate your sorrow, having my- 
self often gone through this experience; 
and I can say that there is no other experi- 
ence which throws such a light upon the 
storm-cloud. We are never ripe till we 
have been made so by suffering. We 
belong to those fruits which must be 
touched by frost before they lose their 
sourness and come to their sweetness. I 
see the goodness of God in this dispensa- 
tion as pointing us toward heaven and 
immortality. In this bereavement there 
is cause for rejoicing ; for sure it is that 
you and your child shall meet again never 
to be separated. 



HENRY WARD BEECHKR, 




MAKE SOME ONE HAPPY. 

THAT is a good day in which you make 
some one happy. It is astonishing 
how little it takes to make one happy. 
Feel that the day is wasted in which you 
have not succeeded in this. 



DEW ITT TA.LMAGE. 



234 




p 



PASSING UNDER THE ROD. ^ 



(•E 



^ 



h 






SAW the young bride in her 
beauty and pride, 
9A I /ll ] I Bedeck'd in her snowy 
<i ijNA/aBl M array; 

And the bright flush of joy 
mantled high on her 
cheek, 
And the future look'.d 
blooming and gay : 
And with woman's devotion 
she laid her fond heart 
At the shrine of idolatrous 
love, 

And she anchor'd her hopes to this perishing 
earth, 
By the chain which her tenderness wove. 
But I saw, when those heartstrings were 
bleeding and torn, 
And the chain had been sever'd in two. 
She had changed her white robes for the 
sables of grief, 
And her bloom for the paleness of woe ! 
But the Healer was there, pouring balm on 
her heart, 
And wiping the tears from her eyes. 
And He strengthen'd the chain He had broken 
in twain. 
And fasten'd it firm to the skies! 
There had whisper'd a voice — 'twas the voice 

of her God: 
" I love thee — I love thee — pass under the rod / " 

I saw the young mother in tenderness bend 

O'er the couch of her slumbering boy, 
And she kiss'd the soft lips as they murmur'd 
her name, 

While the dreamer lay smiling in joy. 
Oh. sweet as a rosebud encircled with dew, 

When its fragrance is flung on the air. 
So fresh and so bright to that mother he 
seem'd. 

As he lay in his'innocence there. 
But I saw when she gazed on the same lovely 
form, 

Pale as marble, and silent, and cold. 
But paler and colder her beautiful boy, 

And the tale of her sorrow was told I 



But the Healer was there who had Strieker 
her heart. 
And taken her treasure away ; 
To allure her to heaven. He has placed it on 
high, 
And the mourner will sweetly obey. 
There had whisper'd a voice — 'twas the voice 

of her God : 
**' I love thee — I love thee — pass under the rod /^* 

I saw the fond brother, with glances of love, 

Gazing down on a gentle young girl. 
And she hung on his arm, and breathed soft 
in his ear, 
As he play'd with each graceful curl. 
Oh, he loved the sweet tones of her silvery 
voice, 
Let her use it in sadness or glee ; 
And he twined his arms round her delicate 
form, 
As she sat in the eve on his knee. 
But I saw when he gazed on her death-stricken 
face, 
And she breathed not a word in his ear, 
And he clasped his arms round an icy-cold 
form. 
And he moisten'd her cheek with a tear. 
But the Healer was there, and He said to him 
thus, 
"Grieve not for thy sister's short life," 
And He gave to his arms still another fair 

girl, 
And he made her his own cherish'd wife! 
There had whisper'd a voice — 'twas the voice 

of his God : 
" I love thee — I love thee — pass under the rod/'* 

I saw, too, a father and mother who lean'd 

On the arms of a dear gifted son. 
And the star in the future grew bright to theii 
gaze. 
As they saw the i)roud place he had won ; 
And the fast-coming evcMiing of life promised 
fair. 
And its pathway grew smooth to their feet, 
And the starlight of love glimmer'd bright at 
the end, 



235 



PASSIXG UYDER THE ROD. 

And the whispers of fancy were sweet. But the Healer was there, and His arms were 

And I saw them again, bending low o'er the around, 

gi'ave, And He led them with tenderest care ; 

WTiere their hearts' dearest hope had been And He show'd them a star in the bright 



laid, 

And the star had gone down in the darkness 
of night, 
And the joy from their bosoms had 
fled. 



upper world ; 
'Twas their star shining brilliantly there ! 
They had each heard a voice — 'twas the voice 

of their God : 
" I love thee— I love thee^pass under the rod ! " 

MARY S. B. DANA. 




CHEERFULNESS. 




ET your 
cheerful- 
ness be felt 
for good 
wherever 
youare^and 
let your 
smiles b e 
scattered 
like s u n - 
beams " on 
the just as well as on the unjust." 
Such a disposition will yield a rich 
reward, for its happy effects will come 
home to you and brighten your mo- 
ments of thought. Cheerfulness makes 
the mind clear, gives tone to thought, 
adds grace and beauty to the countenance. 
Joubert says, ^' When you give, give with 
joy, smiling." Smiles are little things, 
cheap articles to be fraught with so many 
blessings, both to the giver and the re- 
ceiver — pleasant little ripples to watch as 
we stand on the shore of every-day life. 
These are the higher and better responses 
of nature to the emotion of the soul. Let 
the children have the benefit of them — 
those little ones who need the sunshine of 
the heart to educate them, and would find 



a level for their buoyant nature in the 
cheerful, loving faces of those who need 
them. Let them not be kept from the 
middle aged, who need the encouragement 
they bring. Give your smiles also to the 
aged. They come to them like the quiet 
rain of summer, making fresh and ver- 
dant the long, weary path of life. They 
look for them from you, who are rejoicing 
in the fulness of life. 

If your seat is hard to sit upon, stand 
up. If a rock rises up before you, roll it 
away, or climb over it. If you want 
money, earn it. It takes longer to skin 
an elephant than a mouse, but the skin is 
worth something. If you want confi- 
dence, prove yourself worthy of it. Do 
not be content with doing what another 
has done — surpass it. Deserve success 
and it will come. The boy was not born 
a man. The sun does hot rise like a 
rocket, or go down like a bullet fired 
from a gun ; slowly and surely it 
makes its round, and never tires. It 
is as easy to be a lead horse as a wheel 
horse. If the job be long, the pay 
will be greater ; if the task be hard, 
the more competent you must be to 
doit. 



236 



THE CHANGED CROSS. 



IiT was a time of sadness, and my heart, Fair flowers around its sculptured form en- 
I Although it knew and loved the better twined, 

■^A part, And grace and beauty seem'd in it combined. 

Felt wearied with the conflict and the Wondering I gazed,— and still I wonder 'd 
strife, more, 

And all the needful discipline of life. To think so many should have pass'd it o'er. 



And while I thought on these as given to me, 
My trial-tests of faith and love to be. 
It seem'd as if I never could be sure 
That faithfiil to the end I should endure. 

And thus, no longer trusting to His might 
Who says, " We walk by faith and not by sight," 
Doubting, and almost Tielding to despair, 
The thought arose, " My cross I cannot bear, 

" Far heavier its weight must surely be 
Than those of others which I daily see ; 
Oh ! if I might another burden choose, 
Methinks I should not fear my crown to lose." 

A solemn silence reign'd on all around, 
E'en Nature's voices utter'd not a sound; 
The evening shadows seem'd of peace to tell. 
And sleep upon my weary spirit fell. 

A moment's pause, — and then a heavenly light 
Beam'd full upon my wondering, raptured 

sight ; 
Angels on silvery wings seem'd everywhere. 
And angels' music thrill'd the balmy air. 

Then One, more fair than all the rest to see. 
One to whom all the others bow'd the knee. 
Came gently to me, as I trembling lay. 
And, " Follow me," He said ; " I am the Way." 

Then, speaking thus. He led me far above, 
And there, beneath a canopy of love, 
Crosses of divers shape and size were seen, 
Larger and smaller than my own had been. 

And one there was most beauteous to behold, — 
A little one, with jewels set in gold. 
Ah ! this, methought, I can with comfort wear, 
For it will ho an easy one to bear. 

And so the little cross I quickly took. 
But all at once my frame beneath it shook ; 
The sparkling jewels, fair were they to see, 
But far too heavy was their weight for me. 

"This may not be," I cried, and look'd again, 
To see if there was any here could ease my pain; 
But, one by one, I pass'd them slowly by, 
Till on a lovely one I cast my eye. 



But oh that form so beautiful to see 

Soon made its hidden sorrows known to me ; 

Thorns lay beneath those flowers and colors 

fair ; 
Sorrowing I said, ** This cross I may not bear." 

And so it was with each and all around, 
Not one to suit my need could there be found ; 
Weeping I laid each heavy burden down, 
A.S my Guide gertly said, "Ko cross, — no 
crown." 

At length to Him I raised my spdden'd heart; 
He knew its sorrows, bade its doubts depart; 
" Be not afraid." He said, "but trust in Me ; 
My perfect lovft shall now be shown to thee." 

And then, with lighten'd eyes and willing feet, 
Again I turn'd, my earthly cross to meet ; 
With forward footsteps, turning not a^ide, 
For fear some hidd'^.n evil might betide ; 

And there, — in the prepared, appointed way. 
Listening to hear, and ready to obey,— 
A cross I quickly found of plainest form,* 
With only words of love inscribed thereon. 

With thankfulness I raised it from the rest. 
And joyfully acknowledged it the best, — 
The only one, of all the many there. 
That I could feel was good for me to bear. 

And while I thus my chosen one confess'd, 
I saw a heavenly brightness on it rest; 
And as I bent, my burden to sustain, 
I recognized my own old cross again. 

But, oh ! how different did it seem to be, 
Now I had learn'd its preciousness to seel 
No longer could I unbelieving say, 
" Perhaps another is. a better way." 

Ah, no ! henceforth my one desire shall be, 
That He, who knows me best should choose 

for me ; 
And so, whate'er His love sees good to send, 
I'll trust it's best, — because He knows the end. 

MRS. CHARLES HOB ART. 



23 



^Jcz:;:;:^ E V A ^ S BEAT 




VA, after this, declined rapidly ; 
there was no more any doubt 
of the event ; the fondest hope 
could not be blinded. Her 
beautiful room was avowedly 
a sick-room ; and Miss Ophe- 
lia, day and night, performed 
the duties of a nurse, and never did her 
friends appreciate her value more than in 
that capacity. T\^ith so well-trained a 
hand and eye, such perfect adroitness and 
practice in every art which could promote 
neatness a:id comfort and keep out of 
si2:ht everv dis:".!2:reeable incident of sick- 
ne^, — with such a perfect sense of time, 
such a clear, untroubled head, such exact 
accuracy in remembering every prescrip- 
tion and direction of the doctors, — she 
was everything to St. Clare. They who 
had shrugged their shoulders at the little 
peculiarities and setnesses — so unlike the 
careless freedom of Southern manners — 
acknowledged that now she was the exact 
person that was wanted. 

Uncle Tom was much in Eva's room. 
The child suffered much from nervous 
restlessness, and it Avas a relief to her to 
be carried ; and it was Tom's greatest 
delight to carry her little frail form in his 
arms, resting on a pillow, now up and 
down her room, now out into the veranda ; 
and when the fresh sea-breezes blew from 
the lake, — and the child felt freshest in 
the morning, — he would sometimes walk 
with her under the orange-trees in the 
garden, or sitting down in some of their 
old seats, sing to her their favorite old 
hymns. 

Her father often did the same thing ; 
but his frame was slighter, and when he 
was wear>^, Eva would say to him, — 



^^ Oh, papa, let Tom take me^ Pool 
fellow! it pleases him; and you know 
it's all he can do now, and he wants tc do 
something ! ^^ 

" So do I, Eva ! '^ said her father. 

^' AYell, papa, you can do everything, 
and are everything to me. You read to 
me, — you sit up nights ; and Tom has 
only this one thing, and his singing ; and 
I know, too, he does it easier than you 
can. He carries me so strong ! " 

The desire to do something was not con- 
fined to Tom. Every servant in the es- 
tablishment showed the same feeling, and 
in their way did what they could. But 
the friend who knew most of Eva's own 
imaginings and foreshadowings was her 
faithful bearer, Tom. To him she said 
what she would not disturb her father by 
saying. To him she imparted those mys- 
terious intimations which the soul feels as 
the cords begin to unbind ere it leaves its 
clay forever. 

Tom, at last would not sleep in his 
room, but lay all night in the outer 
veranda, ready to rouse at every call. 

^^ Uncle Tom, what alive have you 
taken to sleeping anywhere and every- 
where, like a dog, for ? " said Miss Ophe- 
lia. "I thought you was one of the 
orderly sort that liked to lie in bed in a 
Christian way.'^ 

"I do. Miss Feely,'^ said Tom, mys- 
teriously. '' I do ; but now — '^ 

'^AVell, what now?'' 

" AVe mustn't speak loud ; Mas'r St. 
Clare won't hear on't; but Miss Feely, 
yoti know there must be somebody watchia' 
for the bridegroom." 

" ^ATiat do you mean, Tom ?" 

^^ You know it says in Scripture, ' At 



238 



£VA'S DEATH. 



mIdnio:ht there was a o^reat cry made. 
Behold the bridegroom cometh/ That's 
what I'm spectin' dow^ every night, Miss 
Feely ; and I couldn't sleep out o' hearin', 
no ways.'' 

'' Why, Uncle Tom, what makes you 
think so?" 

** Miss Eva she talks to me. The Lord, 
He sends his messenger in the soul. I 
must be thar, Miss Feely ; ^or when that 
ar blessed child goes into the kingdom 
they'll open the door so wide, we'll all get 
a look in at the glory, Miss Feely.'' 

"Uncle Tom, did Miss Eva say she 
felt more unwell than usual, to-night ? " 

"No; but she telled me this morning 
she was comin' nearer — thar's them that 
tells it to the child, Miss Feely. It's the 
angels, — Mt's 'the trumpet sound afore 
the break o' day,' " said Tom, quoting 
from a favorite hymn. 

This dialogue passed between Miss 
Ophelia and Tom, between ten and eleven, 
one evening, after her arrangements had 
all been made for the night, when on 
going to bolt her outer door, she found 
Tom stretched along by it, in the outer 
veranda. 

She was not nervous or impressible ; 
but the solemn, heartfelt manner struck 
her. Eva had been unusually bright and 
cheerful that afternoon, and had sat raised 
in her bed, and looked over all her little 
trinkets and precious things, and desig- 
nated the friends to whom shi' would have 
them given ; and her manner was more 
animated, and her voice more natural, 
than they had known it for weeks. Her 
father liad been in, in the evening, and 
had said that Eva appeared more like her 
former self than ever she had done since 
her sickness; and when he kissed her for 
the night, he said to Miss Ophelia, 
" Cousin, we may keep her with us after 
all I she is certainly better ; " and he had 



retired with a lighter heart in his bosom 
than he had had there for weeks. 

But at midnight, — strange, mystic 
hour! — when the veil between the frai! 
present and the eternal future grows thin 
— then came the messenger ! 

There was a sound in that chamber, 
first of one who stepped quickly. It was 
Miss Ophelia, who had resolved to sit up 
all night with her little charge, and who 
at the turn of the night had discerned 
what experienced nurses significantly call 
" a change." The outer door was quickly 
opened and Tom, who was watching out- 
side, was on the alert in a moment. 

" Go for the doctor, Tom ! Lose not a 
moment," said Miss Ophelia ; and step- 
ping across the room she rapped at St. 
Clare's door. 

" Cousin," she said, " I wish you would 
come." 

Those words fell on his heart like clods 
upon a coffin. Why did they ? He was 
up and in the room in an instant, and 
bending over Eva, who still slept. 

What was it he saw that made his 
heart stand still ? Why was no word 
spoken between the two ? Thou canst say, 
who hast seen that same expression on the 
face dearest to thee, — that look indescrib- 
able, hopeless, unmistakable, that says to 
thee that thy beloved is no longer thine. 

On the face of the child, however, there 
was no ghastly imprint, — only a high and 
almost sublime expression, — the over- 
shadowing presence of spiritual natures, 
the dawning of immortal life in that child- 
ish soul. 

They stood there so still, gazing upon 
her, that even the ticking of the watch 
seemed too loud. In a few moments Tom 
returned with the doctor. He entered, 
gave one look and stood as silent as the rest. 

" When did this change take place?" 
said he in a low whisper to Miss Ophelia, 



239 



EVA'S DEATH, 



" About the turn of the night/' was the 
replv. 

Marie, roused by the entrance of the 
doctor, appeared hurriedly from the next 
room. 

" Augustine ! Cousin !— Oh !— what I " 
she hurriedly began. 

" Hush ! '^ said St. Clare, hoarsely, 
" She is dying r' 

Mammy heard the words and flew to 
awaken the servants. The house was 
soon roused, — lights were seen, footsteps 
heard, anxious faces thronged the veranda 
and looked tearfully through the glass 
doors ; but St. Clare heard and said noth- 
ing, — he saw only that looh on the face of 
the little sleeper. 

" Oh, if she would only wake, and 
speak once more ! '' he said ; and stooping 
over her, he spoke in her ear, — " Eva, 
darling ! '^ 

The large blue eyes unclosed, — a smile 
passed over her face ; she tried to raise 
her head, and speak. 

" Do you know me Eva ? ^' 

" Dear papa,'* said the child, with a 
last effort, throwing her arms about his 
neck. In a moment they dropped again ; 
and as St. Clare raised his head he saw a 
spasm of mortal agony pass over the face ; 
she struggled for breath, and threw up 
her little hands. 

"O God, this is dreadful!" he said 
turning away in agony, and wringing 
Tom's hand scarce conscious what he was 
doing. '' Oh, Tom, my boy, it is killing me !" 

Tom had his master's hands between 
his own, and with tears streaming down 
his dark cheeks, looked up for help where 
he had always been used to look. 

" Pray that this may be cut short ! " 
said St. Clare : " this wrings my heart ! ^' 

"Oh, bless the Lord! it's over, — it's 
over, dear master I '' said Tom. " Look 
at her," 



The child lay panting on her pillows 
as one exhausted, — and the large clear 
eyes rolled up and fixed. Ah, what said 
those eyes that spoke so much of heaven? 
Earth was past, and earthly pain ; but so 
solemn, so mysterious, was the triumph- 
ant brightness of that face, that it checked 
even the sobs of sorrow. They pressed 
around her in breathless stillness. 

" Eva ! " said St. Clare, gently. She 
did not hear. 

" Oh, Eva, tell us what you see ! TVTiat 
is it ? '* said her father. 

A bright, a glorious smile passed over 
her face, and she said, brokenly, " Oh I 
love — joy — peace ! " gave one sigh, and 
passed from death unto life ! 

Farewell, beloved child ! the bright, 
eternal doors have closed after thee ; we 
shall see thy sweet face no more. Oh, 
woe for them who watched thy entrance 
into heaven, when they shall wake and 
find only the cold gray sky of daily life, 
and thou gone forever ! 



H. B. STOWE. 



WEARY. 

1 WOULD have gone ; God bade me stay : 
I would have work'd; God bade me 
rest. 
He broke my will from day to day; 
He read my yearnings unexpress'd. 
And said them nay. 

Now I would stay ; God bids me go : 
Now I would rest ; God bids me work. 

He breaks my heart toss'd to and fro; 
!My soul is wrung \riX\i doubts that lurk 
And vex it so ! 

I go, Lord, where Thou sendest me; 

Day after day I plod and moil; 
But, Christ my God, when will it be 

That I may let alone my toil, 
And' rest with Thee ? 

CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETlf, 



240 






^Tfe-- 



TRIALS «* OF «* LIFE. 



A. 
1 



-^=^zry^- 




TARS shine 
brightest in 
the dark- 
est night; 
torches are 
the better 
for beat- 
ing; grapes 
come not to 
the proof 
till they 
come to the press ; spices smell sweetest 
when pounded ; young trees root the 
faster for shaking; vines are the better 
for bleeding ; gold looks the brighter for 
scouring; glow-worms glisten best in the 
dark; juniper smells sweetest in the fire; 
pomander becomes most fragrant for chas- 
ing; the palm-tree proves the better for 
pressing ; chamomile, the more you tread 
it, the more you sj^read it. Such is the 
condition of men ; they are the most tri- 
umphant when most tempted; as their 
conflicts, so their conquests ; as their trib- 
ulations, so their triumphs. True sala- 
manders live best in the furnace of perse- 
cution; so that heavy afflictions are the 
best benefactors to heavenly affections. 
And where afflictions hang heaviest, cor- 
ruptions hang loosest ; and grace that is 
hid in nature, as sweet water in rose-leaves, 
is then most fragrant when the fire of 
affliction is put under to distil it out. 

Do you wish to live without a trial? 
Then you wish to die but half a man — at 
the best but half a man. Without trial 
you cannot guess at your own strength. 
Men do not learn to swim on a table. 
They must go into deep water and buffet 
the surges. A certain amount of oppo- 
sition is a great help to a man. Kites rise 
against the wind, and not with the whid ; 
even a head wind is better than none. No 



man ever worked his passage any where 
in a calm. Let no man wax pale, there- 
fore, because of opposition; opposition is 
what he wants and must have, to be good 
for anything. Hardship is the native soil 
of manhood and self reliance. 

An acorn is not an oak tree when it is 
sprouted. It must go through long sum- 
mers and fierce winters ; it has to endure 
all that frost, and snow, and thunder, and 
storm, and side-striking winds can bring, 
before it is a full-grown oak. These are 
rough teachers ; but rugged schoolmasters 
make rugged pupils. So a man is not a 
man when he is created ; he is only begun. 
His manhood must come with years. A 
man who goes through life prosperous, 
and comes to his grave without a wrinKle, 
is not half a man. In time of war, whom 
does the general select for some hazardous 
enterprise ? He looks over his men, and 
chooses the soldier whom he knows will 
not flinch at danger, but will go bravely 
through whatever is allotted to him. He 
calls him that he may receive his orders, 
and the officer, blushing with pleasure to 
be thus chosen, hastens away to execute 
them. Difficulties are God's errands. And 
when we are sent upon them we should 
esteem it a proof of God's confidence — as 
a compliment from God. The traveler 
who goes round the world prepares him- 
self to pass through all latitudes, and to 
meet all changes. So man must be wilhng 
to take life as it comes ; to mount the hill 
when the hill swells, and to go down the 
hill when the hill lowers ; to walk the plain 
when it stretches before him, and to ford 
the river when it rolls over the plain. " I 
can do all things through Christ which 
strengtheneth me." 

The best of people will now and then 
meet with disappointments, for they ar*' 



19c 



241 



TRIALS OF LIFE, 



inherited by mortality. It is, however, 
the better philosophy to take things calmly 
and endeavor to be content with our lot. 
We may at least add some rays of sun- 
shine to our path, if we earnestly endeavor 
to dispel the clouds of discontent that 
may arise in our bosoms. And by so do- 
ing, we the more fully enjoy the bountiful 
blessing that God gives to his humblest 
creatures. 

It is far more noble to improve each 
hour in cultivating the mind, and attun- 
ing it to the glory of the Creator. For 
this end it matters not so much whether 
we spend our time in study or toil ; the 
thoughts of the mind should go out and 
reach after the higher good. In this man- 
ner we may improve ourselves tiU our 
thoughts come to be sweet companions 
that shall lead us along the path of virtue. 
Thus we may grow better within, whilst 
the cares of life, the crosses and losses and 
disappointments lose their sharp thorns, 
and the journey of life be made compara- 
tively pleasant and happy. 

Much material good must be resigned 
if we would attain to the highest degree 
of moral excellence, and many spiritual 
joys must be foregone if we resolve at all 
risks to win great material advantages. 
To strive for a high professional position, 
and yet expect to have all the dehghts of 
leisure ; to labor for vast riches, and yet 
to ask for freedom from anxiety and care, 
and all the happiness which flows from a 
contented mind; to indulge in sensual 
gratification, and yet demand health, 
strength, and vigor ; to live for self, and 
yet to look for the joys that spring from a 
virtuous and self-denying life, is to ask for 
impossibilities. 

God knows what keys in the human 
soul to touch in order to draw out its 
sweeter and most perfect harmonies. They 
may be the minor strains of sadness and 
sorrow ; they may be the loftier notes of 
joy and gladness. God knows where the 
melodies of our natures are, and what 



discipline will bring them forth. Some 
with plaintive tongues must walk in lowly 
vales of life's weary way; others, in loftier 
hymns, sing of nothing but joy, as they 
tread the mountain-tops of life ; but they 
all unite without discord or jar as the 
ascending anthem of loving and believing 
hearts finds its way into the chorus of the 
redeemed in heaven. 



THE LIGHT OF A CHEERFUL FACE. 

'HERE is no greater every-day vir- 
Ife tue than cheerfulness. This qual- 
ity in man, among men, is like sun- 
shine to the day, of gentle renewing 
moisture to parched hearts. The light of 
a cheerful face diffuses itself, and commu- 
nicates the happy sph'it that inspires it. 
The sourest temper must sweeten in the 
atmosphere of continuous good humor. 
As well might fog and cloud, and vapor, 
hope to cling to the sun-illuminated land- 
scape, as the blues and moroseness to com- 
bat jovial speech and exhilarating laugh- 
ter. Be cheerful always. There is no 
path but will be easier traveled, no load 
but will be lighter, no shadow on hcai't 
or brain, but will lift sooner in presence 
of a determined cheerfulness. It may 
sometimes seem difficult for the happiest 
temper to keep the countenance of peace 
and content ; but the difficulty will van- 
ish w^hen we truly consider that sullen 
gloom and passionate despair do nothing 
but multiply thorns and thicken sorrows. 
Ill comes to us as providentially as good, 
and is a good, if we rightfully apply its 
lessons. Who wall not then cheerfully 
accept the ill, and thus blunt its apparent 
sting? Cheerfulness ought to be the fruit 
of philosophy and of Christianity. What 
is gained by peevishness and fretfuluess, 
by perverse sadness and sulleuncss ? If 
we are ill, let us be cheered by the trust 



242 



THE LIGHT OF A CHEERFUL FACE, 



that we shall soon be in health ; if mis- 
fortune befall us, let us be cheered by 
hopeful visions of better fortune ; if death 
robs us of dear ones, let us be cheered by 
the thought that they are only gone before 
to the blissful bowers where we shall all 
meet to part no more forever. Cultivate 
cheerfulness if only for personal profit. 
You will do and bear every dut}' and bur- 
den better by being cheerful. It will be 
your consoler in solitude, your passport 
and commendator in society. You will 
be more sought after, more trusted and 
esteemed for your steady cheerfulness. 
The bad, the vicious, may be boisterously 
gay and vulgarly humorous, but seldom 
or never tridy cheerful. Genuine cheer- 
fulness is an almost certain index of a 
happy and a pure heart. 



LIGHT THROUGH TEARS. 




OU say that 
your sun has 
gone down 
while it is yet 
day, and that 
your path 
looks bleak 
and dreary in 
the gathering twilight. I know it mv 
friend ; I know that the brightness has 
vanished from your life, and that from 
henceforth you must endure hardness 
even unto the end. 

But take courage ; advance in perfect 
faith. Mercies you do not dream of now 
will l>e strewn around your footsteps. 
Powers, which till now have lain as sleep- 
ing shadows M-ithin you, will awake to life; 
powers of faith, of hoi>e, of love, and of 
that perfect patience which will enable 
you to lift your streaming eyes to heaven 



and say, " Lord, I am thine ; do with me 
what thou wilt ; strip me of all earthly 
coverings, only save my soul alive." Then 
let the shades of evening fall ; let your 
path be dark and desolate ; but in the sur- 
rounding stillness you will hear voices 
from the everlasting hills, and the sound 
as of the waving of angels' wings around 
you. One also mightier than the angels 
will make his presence felt, and as you 
}>lace your trembling hand in his and cry 
" Lord, guide me for I cannot see,'' there 
will descend a stream of light upon your 
darkening path, and peace so perfect that 
with songs of praise and of thanksgiving 
you will pursue your way, willing to wait, 
willing to endure, willing to do all things 
for his dear sake who is leading you 
through the valley of the shadow of death 
to the fountains of living waters, to the 
laud of everlasting joy. 



THE DEAD HOUSE. 

EEE once my step was quickened, 
Here beckoned the opening door, 
^ ""■ And welcome thrilled from the thresh- 
old 
To the foot it had kno"w*n before. 

"T was just a womanly presence, 

An influence unexpressed, 
But a rose she had worn, on my grave-sod 

Were more than long life with the rest ! 

'T was a smile, 't was a garment's rustle, 
T was nothing that I can phrase, 

But the whole dumb dwelling grew conscioua, 
And put on her looks and ways. 

Were it mine, I would close the shutters. 

Like lids when the life is fled, 
And the funeral fire should wind it, 

Tliis corpse of a home that is dead. 

For it died that autumn morning 

Wlien she, its soul, was borne 
To lie all dark on the hillside 

That looks over woodhmd and corn. 

JAMES R . LOWELL. 



243 



THE GRAVE. 



5 HERE is a calm for those who weep, 
A rest for weary pilgrims found ; 
They softly lie and sweetly sleep 
Low in the ground. 

The storm that wrecks the winter sky 
No more disturbs their deep repose 
Than summer evening's latest sigh 
That shuts the rose. 

I long to lay this painful head 

And aching heart beneath the soil, 
To slumber in that dreamless bed 
From all my toil. 

For Misery stole me at my birth, 

And cast me helpless on the wild : 
I perish; — O my mother Earth, 

Take home thy child. 

On thy dear lap these limbs reclined, 

Shall gently moulder into thee; 
Nor leave one wretched trace behind 
Besembling me. 

Hark ! — a strange sound affrights mine ear, 
My pulse, — my brain runs wild, — I rave; 
— Ah ! who art thou whose voice I hear? 
"I am the Grave! 

"The Grave, that never spake before, 

Hath found at length a tongue to chide : 
Oh listen! — I will speak no more : — 
Be silent, Pride ! 

"Art thou a Wretch of hope forlorn, 

The victim of consuming care ? 
Is thy distracted conscience torn 
By fell despair ? 

"Do foul misdeeds of former times 

\Yring with remorse thy guilty breast? 
And ghosts of unforgiven crimes 
Murder thy rest ? 

"Lash'd by the furies of the mind. 

From Wrath and Vengeance wouldst thou 
flee? 
Ah ! think not, hope not, fool, to find 
A friend in me. 

" By all the terrors of the tomb, 

Beyond the power of tongue to tell; 
By the dread secrets of my womb; 
By Death and Hell ; 



" I charge thee live ! — repent and pray. 

In dust thine infamy deplore ; 

There yet is mercy — go thy way. 

And sin no more. 

" Art thou a Mourner ? — Hast thou known 

The joy of innocent delights. 
Endearing days for ever flown. 

And tranquil nights ? 

" Oh live! — and deeply cherish still 

The sweet remembrance of the past : 
Kely on Heaven's unchanging will 
For peace at last. 

" Art thou a Wanderer ? — Hast thou seen 

O'erwhelming tempests drown thy bark? 
A shipwreck'd sufi'erer hast thou been. 
Misfortune's mark? 

" Though long of winds and waves the sportj 

Condemn'd in wretchedness to roam. 
Live ! — thou shalt reach a sheltering port, 
A quiet home. 

" To Friendship didst thou trust thy fame, 

And was thy friend a deadly foe. 
Who stole into thy breast to aim 
A surer blow ? 

" Live! — and repine not o'er his loss, 

A loss unworthy to be told, 
Thou hast mistaken sordid dross 

For friendship's gold. 

" Seek the true treasure seldom found. 
Of power the fiercest griefs to calm. 
And soothe the bosom's deepest wound 
With heavenly balm. 

" Did Woman's charm thy youth beguile, 

And did the Fair One faithless prove ? 
Hath she betray'd thee with a smile, 
And sold thy love? 

" Live ! 'Twas a false bewildering fire : 

Too often Love's insidious dart 
Thrills the fond soul with wild desire, 
But kills the heart. 

" Thou yet shalt know how sweet, how dear, 

To gaze on listening Beauty's eye ; 
To ask, — and pause in hope and fear 
Till she reply. 



244 



THE GRA VE. 



'A nobler flame shall warm thy breast, 

A brighter maiden faithful prove ; 
Thy youth, thine age, shall yet be blest 
In woman's love. 

'< — Whate'er thy lot, — whoe'er thou be — 

Confess thy folly, kiss the rod, 
And in thy chastening sorrows see 
The hand of God. 

*' A bruised reed He will not break ; 

Afflictions all his children feel ; 
He wounds them for His mercy's sake, 
He wounds to heal. 

" Humbled beneath His mighty hand, 

Prostrate His Providence adore : 
'Tis done! — Arise ! He bids thee stand. 
To fall no more. 



Sad as the last which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the verge 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer 

dawns 
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds 
To djdng ears, when unto dying eyes 
The casement slowly grows a glimmering 

square : 
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 

Dear as remembered kisses after death. 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned 
On lips that are for others ; deep as love, 
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret, 
death in life I the days that are no more. 

ALFRED TENNYSON. 



" Now, Traveller in the vale of tears 

To realms of everlasting light, 
Through Time's dark wilderness of years, 
Pursue thy flight. 

"There is a calm for those who weep, 

A rest for weary Pilgrims found ; 
And while the mouldering ashes sleep 
Low in the ground, 



PER PACEM AD LUCEM. 

I Do not ask, O Lord, that life may be 
A pleasant road ; 
I do not ask that thou wouldst take 
from me 

Aught of its load : 



" The Soul, of origin divine, 

God's glorious image, freed from clay, 
In heaven's eternal sphere shall shine 
A star of day. 

"The Sun is but a spark of fire, 
A transient meteor in the sky ; 
The Soul, immortal as its Sire, 

Shall never die." 

james montgomery. 



THE DAYS THAT ARE BO MORE. 

TEARS, idle tears ! I know not what they 
mean. 
Tears, from the depth of some divine 
despair. 
Else in the heart, and gather to the eyes, 
In looking on the happy autumn fields, 
And thinking of the days that are no more. 

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail 
Ihat brings our friends up from the under- 
world; 



I do not ask that flowers should always spring 

Beneath my feet; 
I know too well the poison and the sting 

Of things too sweet. 

For one thing only, Lord, dear Lord, I plead. 

Lead me aright — 
Though stren;^th should falter and though 
heart should bleed, — 

Through Peace to Light. 

I do not ask, Lord, that thou shouldst shed 

Full radiance here ; 
Give me a ray of peace that I may tread 

Without a fear. 

I do not ask my cross to understand. 

My way to see ; 
Better in darkness just to feel thy hand. 

And follow thee. 

Joy is like restless day ; but peace divine 

Like quiet night ; 
Lead me O Lord — till perfect day shall shine — 

Through Peace to Light. 

ADELAIDE A. PROCTER, 



245 



<s^ 



EUGENIE, 





HE career of Eugenie is a vivid 
illustration of the fact that 
our life is a checkered one. 
It has its pleasure and pain, its 
joy and sorrow, its sunshine and shadow. 
At one time her life seemed all sunshine, 
now it seems all shadow. 

Washington Irving wrote with almost 
the vision of a seer when he penned the 
following lines in 1853 to his niece, then 
living in Paris. 

" You give an account of the marriage 
procession of Louis Napoleon and his 
bride to the Church Notre Dame, and 
one of your letters speaks of having been 
presented to the Empress. — Louis Napo- 
leon and Eugenie Montijo, Emperor and 
Empress of France, one of whom I have 
had a guest at my cottage on the Hudson, 
and the other, when a child, I have 
had on my knee at Granada. It seems to 
cap the climax of the strange dramas of 
which Paris has been the theatre during 
my life time. The last I saw of Eugenie 
Montijo she was one oi the reigning belles 
of Madrid ; she and her giddy circle had 
swept my charming young friend, the 
JDcautiful, and accomplished Signorita 

, into their career of fashionable 

dissipation. Now Eugenie is on the 
throne, while is a voluntary re- 
cluse in a convent of one of the most 

rigorous orders. Poor ! Perhaps, 

however, her fate may ultimately be the 
happier of the two. "With her the storm 
is over, and she is at rest ; but the other 
is launched upon a dangerous sea, infa- 
mous for its tremendous shipwrecks. Am 
I to live to see the catastrophe of 
her career, or the end of this sud- 
denly conjured -up Empire, which seems 
to be of such stuff as dreams are made 
of? 



"My personal acquaintance with the 
individuals who figure in this historical 
romance gives me uncommon interest in 
it ; but I consider it stamped with dan- 
ger and instability, and as liable to 
extravagant vicissitudes as one of Dumas's 
novels. You do well to witness the o:rand 
features of this passing pageant. You are 
probably reading one of the most peculiar 
and eventful pages of history, and may 
live to look back upon it as a romantic 
tale.'' 

It was daring the Exposition in 1867 
when all the world went to Paris and 
bore testimony to the indefinable charm 
of her presence and manner, that she 
touched the summit of her power as queen 
of fashion and society. Among all the 
lovely women assembled there from every 
nation, none outshone, — none eclipsed her. 
The Czar of Russia, the Emperor of 
Austria, the King of Prussia, the Sultan 
of Turkey, and the princes and nobles of 
all Europe rendered homage to her 
charms. No court of the old world could 
boast of her counterpart, and as a senti- 
mental sorceress her spell could not be 
broken. Napoleon was never prouder of 
her than during that gala time, which 
seemed to predict the dawn of wide-spread 
and lasting peace. How false are appear- 
anceg ! 

Another of Eugenie's peaceful victories 
was when, in November, 1869, she visited 
Egypt, to assist in the celebration of the 
opening of the Suez Canal. She went 
with her suite in purple state, leaving 
Marseilles in the steam yacht Aigle in 
most propitious weather. On the six- 
teenth of November she was visited at 
Port Said by the Prince and Princess of 
Holland, the Prince Poyal of Prussia, the 
Viceroy of Egypt, the Emperor of Austria, 



246 



EUGENIE. 



Prince Metternich, and many foreign dig- 
nitaries and envoys. The Emprctis 
landed ; assisted at a Te Deum ; attended a 
Mosque, and remained through the Mus- 
sulmanic service. The town, the banks 
of the canal, and the vessels were illumi- 
nated, and festivities were kept up until a 
very late hour. Perc Bauer, the almoner 
of Eugenie, ^^opaiicd" the canal with a 
solemn blessing, and invoked the favor of 
Heaven upon her for her sympathy with, 
and interest in the great work. 

At Cairo and Alexandria, Eugenie was 
greeted wdth loud acclamations and dem- 
onstrations of delight. She lent a glory 
to the occasion, which, without her, it 
would have never had ; and she returned 
from Egypt almost smothered with the 
laurels she had gained from all sorts of 
people. 

Soon after this, the clouds, w^hich were 
destined to shut out the sun of her earthly 
joy, and throw such a dark shadow of 
sorrow over the remainder of her life, 
began to gather. 

War had been declared against Prussia 
and Louis Napoleon had concluded to 
take command of the forces in the field. 
Eugenie was appointed regent ; and the 
Emperor, brave enough to trust himself 
to a final interview, rode quietly to the 
station wdth Eugenie and the Prince 
Imperial. At the station, the tears, the 
sobs, the caresses and the clingings were 
renewed ; and it was with difficulty that 
Napoleon and the Prince induced the 
frantic lady to compose herself sufficiently 
to enable them to make their adieux with 
becoming dignity. She still clasped her 
husband and her son in her arms, as if 
her soul had grown to them, up to the 
very moment of the starting of the train. 
The Emperor then motioned to the ladies 
of the Court who were in attendance. 
They came forward and gently disengaged 



her convulsive embrace, and led her away. 
The train moved off, and her heart fol- 
lowed those nearest and dearest to her of 
all the world. She threw kisses to them, 
while her delicately gloved hands were 
wet with the rain of her grief. The boy^s 
lip quivered and even the father's stolid face 
revealed a pang, as the last glance of the 
weeping Empress fell upon them, dashing 
off to the northern frontier, and to the 
bloody struggle which was to bring to 
France the deepest humiliation she had 
ever known. 

Only a few weeks, and from the head 
of the great nation, the regent and em- 
bodiment of the imperial power, Eugenie 
became a fugitive from the scene of her 
daily triumphs, with none of her count- 
less worshippers to do her reverence. 
While the world gazed at the blazing 
star, and said, " See how brilliant ! " it 
fell from the midst of the heavens into the 
depths of night. 

Not long after this her husband died, 
w^hose loss she felt most keenly. All her 
hopes as mother and sovereign then cen- 
tered in her son and only child. Prince 
Louis, who had developed into a gallant 
and accomplished young fellow, whom all 
that knew him loved ; and who was looked 
up to as the head of the Napoleonic party 
in France. 

The world wondered when he, in pur- 
suit of a Utopian idea that he could be of 
service to England, for whose hospitality 
he felt grateful, left his luxurious home 
to enter the British army in South Africa. 
But when, on an early June day in 1879, 
the telegraph flashed the news around the 
globe that the brave young heart had 
ceased to beat — that the young Napoleon 
lay stark and dead beneath an African sun, 
his body pierced with many cruel wounds 
from the remorseless spears of the savage 
Zulus — a thrill of heartfelt sorrow went 



247 



EUGENIE. 



ttrougk millions of breasts ; of pity for 
the young life thrown away, but a two- 
fold sympathy for Eugenie, once the great 
Empress of France, now only remembered 
by the world as the poor, crushed, grief- 
stricken mother, bowed to the very earth 
by the weight of her crushed hopes, and, 
like Eachel, refusing to be comforted. 

Those who have seen the ex-Empress 
of the French lately, cannot help con- 
trasiing the face of years ago, with the 
face that has looked on the terrible scenes 
that followed Sedan, the dead husband at 
Chiselhurst, and the dead son who was 
brought home to her from the plains of 
Zululand. Those who saw the imperial 
lady in Paris, at the time of the great 
Exposition and before, have not forgotten 
how beautiful she w^as. " Doesn't she 
deserve a throne for her beauty ? " said 
an American gentleman who saw her for 
the first time in Paris. She united the 
most handsome features of the German 
and Latin races — the forehead high and 
free, the eyes splendidly blue, but not 
very large ; the hair of a slightly dark- 
ened hue ; the form of her face small, 
oval ; the nose fine, in beautiful symme- 
try, but not too high ; the mouth a trifle 
too large, especially when she smiled, and 
the least bit Jewish. Her whole appear- 
ance suggested a beautiful model for a 
Hebe — neck, shoulders, arms, and above 
all, her hands beautifully shaped, and all 
this combined with the witching grace of 
an Andalusian dauseuse. But time and 
sorrow have wrought their changes. The 
beauty has been swept by the rough fin- 
gers of adversity, and the lady, whose 
suite consists of a few faithful French 
friends, is no longer that bright particular 
star that shone so long in the galaxy of 
Parisian fashion and splendor; position as 
Empress of France and queen of the 
world of fashion gone* husband gone; 



only son and child gone ; beauty gone ; 
all earthly joy and hope gone. What a 
contrast to the bright years of her early 
wifehood, when, as mistress of France, 
and of the world of fashion and beauty, 
she ruled supreme from the seeming acme 
of earthly greatness. 



NOVEMBER. 

WE often hear people say, " O, the 
dreary days of November ! '^ 
The days of November are never 
dreary, though men sometimes are. There 
are things in November that make us sad. 
There are suggestions in it that lead us to 
serious thoughts. At that season of the 
year, we are apt to feel that life is passing 
away. After the days in summer begin 
to grow short, I cannot help sighing often ; 
and, as they still grow shorter and shorter, 
I look upon things, not with pain, but 
with a melancholy eye. And when 
autumn comes, and the leaves of the trees 
drop down through the air and find their 
resting-places, I cannot help thinking, 
that life is short, that our work is almost 
ended. It makes me sad ; but there is a sad- 
ness that is wholesome, and even pleasur- 
able. There are sorrows that are not 
painful, but are of the nature of some 
acids, and give piquancy and flavor to life. 
Such is the sorrow which November 
brings. That month, which sees the year 
disrobed, is not a dreary month. I like 
to see the trees go to bed, as much as I 
like to see little children go their sleep ; 
and I think there is nothing prettier in 
this world than to see a mother disrobe 
her child and prepare its couch, and sing 
and talk to it, and finally lay it to rest. 
I like to see the birds get ready for their 
repose at night. Did you ever sit at twi- 
light and hear the birds talk of their 
domestic matters, — apparently going over 



248 



NOVEMBER. 



with each other the troubles and joys of 
the day ? There is an immense deal to 
be learned from birds, if a person has an 
ear to hear. Even so I like to see the 
year prepare for its sleep. I like to see 
the trees with their clothes taken off. I 
like to see the lines of a tree ; to see its 
anatomy. I like to see the preparation 
God makes for winter. How everything 
is snugged and packed ! How all nature 
gets ready for the cold season ! How the 
leaves heap themselves upon the roots to 
protect them from the frosts ! How all 
things tender are taken out of the way, 
and only things tough are left to stand 
the buffetings of winter ! And how do 
hardy vines and roots bravely sport their 
bannered leaves, which the frost cannot 
kill, holding them up clear into the coldest 
days I November is a dreary month to 
some, but to me it is only sad ; and it is a 
sweet sadness that it brings to my mind. 



HENRY WARD BEECHER, 



THE BRIGHT SIDE. 

LOOK on the bright side. It is the 
right side. The times may be hard, 
but it will make them no easier to 
wear a gloomy and sad countenance. It 
is the sunshine and not the cloud that 
gives beauty to the flower. There is 
always before or around us that which 
should cheer and fill the heart with 
warmth and gladness. The sky is blue 
ten times where it is black once. You 
have troubles, it may be. So have others. 
None are free from them ; and perhaps it 
is as well that none should be. They 
give sinew and tone to life, fortitude and 
courage to man. That would be a dull 
sea, and the sailor would never acquire 
skill, where there is nothing to disturb its 
surface. It is the duty of every one to 
extract all the happiness and enjoyment 



he can within and without him; and 
above all, he should look on the bright 
side. What though things do look a lit- 
tle dark ? The lane will turn, and the 
night will end in broad day. In the long 
run the great balance rights itself. What 
appears ill becomes well — that which 
appears wrong, right. Men are not 
always to hang down their heads or lips, 
and those who do, only show that they 
are departing from the paths of true com- 
mon sense and right. There is more 
virtue in one sunbeam than in a whole 
hemisphere of clouds and gloom. There- 
fore we repeat, look on the bright side. 
Cultivate all that is warm and genial — not 
the cold and repulsive, the dark and morose. 



THE INTERIOR, 



CL/OUDS 




E cheerful 
beneath the 
cloud. And 
if the cloud 
should come 
in the day- 
time, still be 
c li c e r f u 1 . 
The Israel- 
ites had the 
cloud in the 
day. I recollect kneeling once with 
familiar friendliness and love around 
the family altar of a dear friend, whom 
I loved as I loved no other on this 
earth, and he prayed for me that I 
might know what it was to have the 
pillar of cloud when the day was too 
bright, and the pillar of fire when the 
night was too dark. We need that always, 
do we not ? The pillar of cloud and the 
pillar of fire are needed as much for us as 
for the Israelites of old. Did I mention 
to you what I thought as I saw that 
picture of the German painter some time 



249 



CLOUDS. 



ago ? I could not make out what he meant 
by it. It was called ''cloud-land," and it 
fleemed nothing but cloud on cloud. But 
what do you think ? As I looked, I saw 
that every cloud turned into an angel or 
an angel's wing, and the whole picture, 
that seemed at first only a mass of gloom, 
looked out upon me with hundreds of 
angels' eyes and hundreds of angels' wings. 
So ^'ith all clouds; if God comes nigh to 
us by them, look at them, and they turn 
into angels. They are not desirable in 
themselves, they are not pleasant; no 
chastisement, no affliction, no cloud is at 
present joyous, but grievous. We foolish 
men would walk always in the day-bright- 
ness ; we do not want clouds ; but the 
angels know their value, and God too, or 
he would never send them to us. 

E. PAXTON HOOD. 



TRANSIENT TROUBLES. 



OST of us have had troubles all 
our lives, and each day has 



2 y X brought all the evil that we 
wished to endure. But if we 
were asked to recount the sorrows of our 
lives, how many could we remember? 
How many that are six months old should 
\VQ think worthy to be remembered or 
mentioned? To daj^'s troubles look large, 
l)ut a week hence they will be forgotten 
ii-nd buried out of sight. 

If you would keep a book, and every 
day put down the things that worry you, 
and see what becomes of them, it would 
be a benefit to you. You allow a thing 
to annoy you, just as you allow a fly to 
settle on you and plague you ; and you 
lose your temper (or rather get it; for 
when men are surcharged with temper 
they are said to have lost it) ; and you 
justify yourselves for being thrown off 
your balance by causes which you do not 
trace out. But if you would see what it 
was that threw you off your balance before 
breakfast, and put it down in a little book. 



and follow it out, and ascertain what be- 
comes of it, you would see what a fool you 
were in the matter. 

The art of forgetting is a blessed art, 
but the art of overlooking is quite as im- 
portant. And if we should take time to 
write down the origin, the progress, and 
outcome of a few of our troubles, it would 
make us so ashamed of the fuss we make 
over them, that we should be glad to drop 
such things and bury them at once in 
eternal forgetfuhiess. Life is too short to 
be worn out in petty worries, frettings, 
hatreds, and vexations. Let us think 
only on whatsoever things are pure, and 
lovely, and gentle, and of good report. 



TRIALS 



EIALS come in a thousand different 
forms, and as many avenues are 
open to their approach. They 
come from physical appetites, aesthetic 
tastes, social habits, bodily ills, the desire 
for gain, the love of luxury and of ease. 
They come through every contact with 
the unrenewed mind of the world, and 
from the assaults of Satan. They come 
with the warm throbbings of our youth- 
ful lives, keep pace with the measured 
tread of manhood's noon, and depart not 
from the descending footsteps of decrep- 
itude and age. " Lead us not into temp- 
tation," should ever remind us of our 
utter weakness and absolute dependence 
upon Almighty support. But we may 
not hope to be entirely free from either 
disciplinary trial or the fiery darts of the 
enemy, until w^e reach that land into 
which shall enter nothing that deceiveth 
or maketh a lie. 



It is worth a thousand pounds a year 
to have the habit of looking on the bright 
side of things. 



DR. JOHNSON. 



250 



IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN I 



1 m:.2:ht "have been! ^\Tien life is young, 
And hopes are bright, and hearts are 
strong 
To battle with the heartless throng, 
When youth and age are far between. 
Who heeds the words so sadly sung ? — 
It might have been ! 

It might have been ! ^Mlen life is fair, 
Youth stands beside the boundless sea 
That ebbs and flows unceasingly, , 

And dreams of name and golden fame ; 
And who shall limit the To-be 
That's dawning there ? 

It might have been ! When life is bright, 
And love is in its golden prime, 
Youth recks not of the coming night, 
Nor dreams that there may be a time 
^^^len love will fail, or change, or die 
Eternally ! 

It might have been 1 "VMien time grows grey, 
And spring-tide's hopes have passed away, 
Old age looks back on by-gone years — 
Their many wants, and doubts, and fears — 
And through the mist a way is seen : 
The Might-have-been ! 



It might have been ! TMien age is sad, 
Weary of waiting for the fame 
That after all is but a name, 
When life has lost the charm it had, 
True knowledge makes regret more keen — 
It might have been ! 

It might have been ! \^lien youth is dead. 
And love that was so false has fled. 
When all the mockeries of the past 
Have lost their tinsel rays at last, 
The one true love is clearly seen. 
That might have been ! 

It might have been ! Ah me ! ah me ! 
And who shall tell the misery 
Of knowing all that life has lost? 
By thinking of the countless cost, 
Poor comfort can the sad heart glean ! 
It might have been ! 

It might have been I — nay rather rest. 
Believing what has been was best ! 
The life whose sun has not yet set 
Can find no room for vain regret, 
And only folly crowns as queen 
Its Might-have-been! 

G. m. 



-Va 



TO AUTUMN, 



(^ WEET Sabbath of the Y^ear I 

While evening lights decay, 
Thy parting steps methinks I hear 
Steal from the World away. 



s 



Amid thy silent bowers 

'Tis sad, but sweet to dwell ; 
Where falling leaves and drooping flowers 

Around me breathe fiirewell. 

AJ.ong thy sunset skies 

Their glories melt in shade, 
And, like the things we fondly prize, 

Seem lovelier as they fade. 



A deep and crimson streak 
Thy dying leaves disclose ; 



As on consumption's waning cheek 
'Mid ruin blooms the rose. 

Thy scene each vision brings 

Of beauty to decay ; 
Of fair and early faded things 

Too beautiful to stay : 

Of joys that come no more — 

Of flowers whose bloom is fled — 

Of Farewells wept upon the shore, 
Of Friends estranged or dead ; 

Of all that now may seem 

To Memory's tearful eye, 
The vanished beauty of a dream, 

O'er which we gaze and sigh ! 

MONTGOMERY, 



251 



AFTER THE BURIAL. 



SES, Faith is a goodly anchor 
When skies are sweet as a psalm 
It lolls at the bows so stalwart 
In bluff, broad-shouldered calm. 

And when over breakers to leeward 

The tattered surges are hurled, 
It may keep our head to the tempest, 

With its grip on the base of the world. 

But, after the shipwreck, tell me 

What help in its iron thews, 
Still true to the broken hawser, 

Deep down among seaweed and ooze? 

In the breaking gulfs of sorrow. 
When the helpless feet stretch out, 

And find in the deeps of darkness 
!N"o footing so solid as doubt ; 

Then better one spar of memory, 

One broken plank of the Past, 
That our human heart may cling to, 

Though hopeless of shore at last ! 

To the spirit its splendid conjectures, 

To the flesh its sweet despair. 
Its tears o'er the thin worn locket 

With its anguish of deathless hair 1 

Immortal ? I feel it and know it; 

TMio doubts it of such as she ? 
But that is the pang's ver}^ secret — 

Immortal away from me ! 

A glow came forth to meet me 

From the flame that laughed in the grate, 
And shadows a-dance on the ceiling. 

Danced blither with mine for a mate. 

"I claim you, old friend," yawned the arm- 
chair ; 
" This corner, you know, is your seat ; " 
"Rest your slippers on me," beamed the 
fender, 
" I brighten at touch of your feet." 

"We know the practiced flnger," 
Said the books, " that seems like brain ; " 

And the shy page rustled the secret 
It had kept till I came again. 



Sang the pillow, " My down once quivered 
On nightingales' throats that flew 



Through moonlit gardens of Hafiz 
To gather quaint dreams for you." 

Ah me, where the Past sowed heart's-ease, 
The Present plucks rue for us men ! 

I come back : that scar unhealing 
Was not in the churchyard then. 

But, I think, the house is unaltered, 

I will go and beg to look 
At the rooms that were once familiar 

To my life as its bed to a brook. 

Unaltered ! Alas for the sameness 

That makes the change but more ! 
'T is a dead man I see in the mirrors, 
'T is his tread that chills the floor ! 

To learn such a simple lesson, 

Keed I go to Paris and Rome, 
That the many make the household, 

But only one the home ? 

There's a narrow ridge in the graveyard 
Would scarce stay a child in his race; 

But to me and my thought it is wider 
Than the star-sown vague of space. 

Your logic, my friend, is perfect, 
Your moral 's most drearily true ; 

But since the earth clashed on her coffin, 
I keep hearing that, and not you. 

Console, if you will ; I can bear it; 

'Tis a well-meant alms of breath ; 
But not all the preaching since Adam 

Has made Death other than Death. 

It is pagan : but wait till you feel it, 
That jar of our earth, that dull shock. 

When the ploughshare of deeper passion 
Tears down to our primitive rock. 

Communion in spirit ? Forgive me, 
But I, who am earthly and weak. 

Would give all my incomes from dreamlg».nd 
For her rose-leaf palm on my cheek ! 

That little shoe in the corner. 

So worn and wrinkled and brown — 

Its emptiness confutes you, 
And argues your wisdom down. 

JAMES R. LOWELL. 



252 



WHAT THE END SHALL BE. 



WHEN another life is added 
To the heaving, turbid mass ; 
When another breath of being 
Stains cremation's tarnished glass ; 
When the fi''st cry, weak and piteous, 

Heralds Irng-enduring pain, 
And a soul ^rom non-existence 

Springs, t^iat ne'er can die again ; 
When the mother's passionate welcome, 

Sorrow-]>.ke, bursts forth in tears, 
And a sire's self-gratulation 
Propb^/nies of future years, — 

It is well we cannot see 
What the end shall be. 

When across the infant features 

Trembles the faint dawn of mind, 
And the heart looks from the windows 

Of the eyes that were so blind ; 
When the inarticulate murmurs 

Syllable each swaddled thought, 
To the fond ear of affection 

With a boundless promise fraught ; 
Kindling great hopes for to-morrow 

From that dull, uncertain ray, 
As by glimmering of the twilight 

Is foreshown the perfect day, — 

It is well we cannot see 
What the end shall be. 

When the boy, upon the threshold 

Of his all- comprising home. 
Puts aside the arm maternal 

That enlocks him ere he roam ; 
When the canvas of his vessel 

Flutters to the favoring gale, 
Years of solitary exile 

Hid behind the sunny sail : 
When his pulses beat with ardor, 

And his sinews stretch for toil. 
And a hundred bold emprises 

Lure him to that eastern soil, — 

It is well we cannot see 
What the end shall be. 

When the youth beside the maiden 
Looks into her credulous eyes, 

And the heart upon the surface 
Shines too happy to be wise ; 



He by speeches less than gestures 

Hinteth what her hopes expound, 
Laying out the waste hereafter 

Like enchanted garden-ground ; 
He may falter — so do many ; 

She may suffer — so must all : 
Both may yet, world-disappointed, 

This lost hour of love recall,— 

It is well we cannot see 
What the end shall be. 

When the altar of religion 

Greets the expectant bridal pair, 
And the vow that lasts till dying 

Vibrates on the sacred air ; 
When man's lavish protestations 

Doubts of after-change defy. 
Comforting the frailer spirit 

Bound his servitor for aye ; 
When beneath love's silver moonbeams 

Many rocks in shadow sleep, 
Undiscovered, till possession 

Shows the danger of the deep, — 

It is well we cannot see 
What the end shall be. 

Whatsoever is beginning, 

That is wrought by human skill ; 
Every daring emanation 

Of the mind's ambitious will : 
Every first impulse of passion. 

Gush of love or twinge of hate ; 
Every launch upon the waters 

Wide-horizoned by our fate ; 
Every venture in the chances 

Of life's sad, oft desperate game. 
Whatsoever be our motive. 

Whatsoever be our aim, — 

It is well we cannot see 
What the end shall be. 

FRANCES BROWN. 



FRAGMENT. 

^^^OLD in earth, and the deep snow piled 

1|/^ above thee. 

\JL£ Far, far removed, cold in the dreary 

grave ! 
Have I forgot, my only love, to love thee, 
Severed at last by time's all severing wave? 



253 



FRAGMENT, 



XoTV, when alone, do mv thought no longer 
hover 
Over the mountains on that northern shore, 
Eestmg their "wings "uhere heath and fern- 
leaves cover 
Thy noble heart forever, evermore ? 

Cold in the earth — and fifteen wild Decembers 
From those brown hills have melted into 
spring ; 

Faithful, indeed, is the sphit that remembers 
After such years of change and suffering. 

Sweet love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee 
While the world's tide is bearing me along ; 

Other desires and other hopes beset me, 
Hopes which obsc-ure, but cannot do thee 
wrong. 

Xo later Hght has lightened up my heaven, 
No second m.om has ever shone for me ; 

All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given ; 
All my Ufe's bhss is in the grave with thee. 

But when the days of golden dreams had 
perished, 

And even despair was powerless to destroy ; 
Then did I learn existence could be cherished, 

Strengthened and fed without the aid of joy. 

Then did I check the tears of useless passion, 
Weaned my young soul from yearning after 
thine; 

Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten 
Down to that tomb already more than mine. 

And even yet I dare not let it languish, 
Dare not indulge in memor}"'s rapturous 
pain. 

Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish, 
How could I seek the empty world again? 

EMILY BRONTE. 



SITTING IN THE SUN. 

WHEX Hope deceives, and friends betray, 
And kuismen shun me \ci\h. a fl.out ; 
AMien hair grows white, and eyes 
grow dim, 
And life's slow sand is nigh run out, 
I'll ask no boon of any one, 
But sing old songs, and sit i' the sun. 

When menn^ry is my only joy, 
And all my thoughts shall backward turn ; 



TMien eyes shall cease to glow with love, 
And heart with generous fire to bum, 
I'll ask no boon of any one. 
But sing old songs, and sit i' the sun. 

When sounds grow low to deafening ears, 
And suns shine not as once they did ; 

When parting is no more a grief. 
And a. do whatsoe'er they bid, 

I'll ask no boon of any one. 

But sing old songs, and sit i" the sun. 

Then underneath a spreading elm, 
That guards some httle cottage door, 

111 dance a grandchild on my knee, 
And count my past days o'er and o'er ; 

I'll ask no boon of any one, 

But sing old songs and sit i' the sun. 



HYMN TO ADVERSITY. 

DAUGHTEE of Jove, relentless po^ er, 
Thou tamer of the human breast. 
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour 
The bad afl'right, atflict the best ! 
Bound in thy adamantine chain. 
The proud are t^iught to taste of pain. 
And purple tyrants vainly groan 
With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. 

When first thy sire to send on earth 
Virtue, his darling child, designed, 
To thee he gave the heavenly birth, 

And bade to form her infant mind. 
Stern, rugged nurse I thy rigid lore 
With patience many a year she bore ; 
TMiat sorrow was, thou bad'st her know, 
And from her own she learned to melc at 
others' woe. 

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly 

Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, 
Wild Laughter, Xoise, and thoughtless Joy, 

And leave us leisure to be good. 
Light they disperse, and with them go 
The stmimer friend, the flatterhig foe ; 
By vain Prosperity received, 
To her they vow their truth, and are again 
believed. 

Wisdom in sable garb arrayed, 

Immersed in rapturous thought profound, 
And Melancholy, silent maid, 
With leaden eye that loves the ground, 
Still on thy solemn steps attend ; 



254 



HYMN TO ADVERSITY, 



Warm Charin-, the general friend, 

With Justice to herself severe, 

And Pity, dropping soft the sadly pleasing 

lear. 

! gently on thy suppliant's head, 

Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand, 
2N0t in thy Gorgon terrors clad . 

Xor circled with the vengeful band, 
(As by the impious thou art seen,) 
With thundering voice and threatening mien, 
With screaming Horror's funeral cry, 
Lespair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty. 

Thy form benign, oh goddess, wear, 

Thy milder influence impart. 
Thy philosophic train be there 

To soften, not to wound, my heart. 
The generous spark extinct revive, 
Teach me to love, and to forgive, 
Exact my own defects to scan, 
"What others are to feel, and know myself a 
man. 

TH0MA5 GRAY. 



JOY BRINGERS. 

SOME men move through, life as a 
band of music moves down the sti'eet, 
flinging out pleasure on every side 
through the air to every one, far and near, 
that can listen. Some men fill the air 
with their presence and sweetness, as 
orchards in October days fill the air with 
the perfume of ripe fruit. Some women 
cling to their own houses, like the honey- 
suckle over the door, yet, like it, sweeten 
all the reirion with the subtle fragrance of 
their goodness. There are trees of right- 
eousness, which are ever dropping pre- 
cious fruit around them. There are lives 
that shine like star-beams, or charm the 
heart like songs sung upon a holv dav. 

How great a bounty and blessing it is 
to hold the royal gifts of the soul, so that 
they shall be music to some and fragrance 
to others, and life to all ! It would be 
no unworthy thing to live for, to make 
:he p<jwcr which we have within us the 
breath of other men's joy ; to scatter sun- 



shine where only clouds and shadows 
reign ; to fill the atmosphere where earth's 
weary toilers must stand, with a bright- 
ness which they cannot create for them- 
selves, and which they long for, enjoy 
and appreciate. 

DAVID'S HARP. 

OXE day Da\'id, the King of Israel, sat 
on the hill of Zion, his harp rested 
before him, and he leaned his head 
on the harp. 

The Prophet Gad came to him and 
said, ''Of what are you thinkii^g my 
king?" 

David answered and said, " Of my per- 
petually changing lot. How many h}'mns 
of thanksgiving and rejoicing, but, also, 
how many plaintive and mournful odes, 
have I sung with this harp ! " 

'• Be thou like thy harp ! " said the 
prophet. *• "\\1iat do you mean ? '' asked 
the king. "Behold " answered the man 
of God,*' thy sorrow as thy joy, elicited 
heavenly tones from thy harp, and ani- 
mated its strings ; so may sorrow and joy 
form thy heart and life to the heavenly 
harp." 

Then David arose and struck the strings. 

F. W. KRUMMACHER. 



SMILES. 



F people will only notice, they will be 
Ji amazed to find how much a really 
enjoyable evening owes to smiles. 
But few consider what an important symbol 
of fine intellect and fine feeling they are. 
Yet all smiles, after childhood, are things 
of education. Savages do not smile; 
coarse, brutal, cruel men may laugh, but 
they seldom smile. The affluence, the 
benediction, the radiance, which 

Fills the silence like a sj^eech, 

is the smile of a full appreciative heart. 

The face that grows finer as it listens, 
and then breaks into sunshine instead of 



255 



SMILES. 



words, has a suDtle, charming influence, 
universally felt, though very seldom 
understood or acknowledged. Personal 
and sarcastic remarks show not only a 
bad heart and a bad head, but bad taste 
also. 

Now society may tolerate a bad heart 
and a bad head, but it will not endure 
bad taste ; and it is in just such points as 
this that the conventional laws which 
they have made, represent and enforce 
real obligations. There are many who 
would not cease from evil speaking be- 
cause it is wrong, who yet restrain them- 
selves because it is vulgar. Lord Bacon 
tells of a nobleman whom he knew — a 
man who gave lordly entertainments, but 
always suffered some sarcastic personality 
to " mar a good dinner," adding, " Dis- 
cretion of speech is more than eloquence ; 
and to speak agreeably to him with whom 
we deal is more than to speak in good 
words ; for he that hath a satirical vein, 
making others afraid of his wit, liath need 
to be afraid of another's memory." 



MRS. BURR 



GOING HOME. 

PE-AWN by horses with deoorous feet, 
A carriage for one went through the 
street, 
Polished as anthracite out of the 
mine, 
Tossing its plumes so stately and fine. 
As nods to the night a Norway pine. 

The passenger lay in Parian rest. 
As if by the sculptor's hand caressed, 
A mortal life through the marble stole, 
And then till an angel calls the roll 
It awaits awhile for a huihan soul. 

He rode in state, but his carriage-fare 
Was left unpaid to his only heir ; 
Hardly a man, from hovel to throne, 
Takes to this route in coach of his own, 
But borrows at last and travels alone. 



The driver sat in his silent seat ; 
The world,' as still as a field of wheat, 
Gave all the road to the speechless twain, 
And thought the passenger never again 
Should travel that way with living men. 

Not a robin held its little breath, 
But sang right out in the face of death ; 
You never would dream, to see the sky 
Give glance for glance to the violet's eye, 
That augh£ between them could ever die. 

A wain bound east met the hearse bound 

west, 
Halted a moment, and passed abreast; 
And I verily think a stranger pair 
Have never met on a thoroughfare. 
Or a dim by-road or anywhere : 

The hearse as slim and glossy and still 
As silken thread at woman's will, 
Who watches her work with tears unshed, 
Broiders a grief with needle and thread, 
Mourns in pansies and cypress the dead ; 

Spotless the steeds in a satin dress, 

That run for two worlds the Lord's Ex- 
press, — 

The wain gave a lurch, the hearse moved 
on,— 

A moment or two, and both were gone ; 

The wain bound east, the hearse bound 
west. 

Both going home, both looking for re^t. 

The Lord save all, and his name be blest I 

BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR, 



ANGEL OF PATIENCE. 

^^NGEL of Patience ! sent to calm 

\~\ Our feverish brows with cooling palm ; 

To lay the storms of hope and fear. 
And reconcile life's smile and tear ; 
The throbs of wounded pride to still. 
And make our own our Father's will. 
Oh thou who mournest on thy way. 
With longings for the coming day. 
He walks with thee, that angel kind, 
And gently whispers, " Be resigned." 
Bear up, bear on, the end will tell 
The dear Lord ordereth all things well. 

J . G. WHITTIER, 

56 



i 



THE HAPPY HOUR. 



THE life of man has wondrous hours 
Revealed at once to heart and eye, 
When wake all being's kindled powers, 
And joy, like dew on trees and flowers, 
With freshness fills the earth and 
sky. 
With finer scent and softer tone 

The breezes wind through waving leaves ; 
By friendlier beams new tints are thrown 
On furrowed stem and mouldering stone : 
The gorgeous grapes, the jewelled sheaves 

To living glories turn ; 
And eyes that look from cottage eaves. 
Through shadows grim that jasmine weaves, 
With love and fancy burn. 

The broad smooth river flames with waves, 

Where floats the swan, an opal sprite. 
And marble shapes on silent graves. 

Seem starting towards the light. 
The distant landscape glows serene; 
The dark old tower, with tremulous sheen, 

Pavilion of a seraph stands ; 
The mountain rude, with steeps of gold. 
And mists of ruby o'er them rolled. 

Up toward the evening star expands. 
The ocean streaks, in distance gray. 
With sapphire radiance sparkling play, 
Aud silver sails hold on their way 

To unseen fairy lands. 

And those who walk within the sphere, 

The plot of earth's transfigured green, 
Like angels walk, so high, so clear. 

With ra^■ishment in eye and mien. 
For this one hour no breath of fear, 
Of shame or weakness, wandering near, 

Can trusting hearts annoy : 
Past things are dead, or only live 
The life that hope alone can give. 

And all is faith and joy. 

'Tis not that beauty forces then 

Her blessings on reluctant men, 

But this great globe with all its might, 

Its awful depth and heavenward height, 

Seems but my heart with wonder thrilling, 

And beating in my human breast; 
My sense with inspiration filling. 

Myself beyond my nature blest. 

Well for all such hours who know, 
All who hail, not bid them go. 
If the spirit's strong pulsation 



After keeps its nobler tone, 
And no helpless lamentation 

Dulls the heart when rapture's flown: 
If the rocky field of Duty, 

Built around with mountain hoar, 
Still is dearer than the Beauty 

Of the sky-land's colored shore. 

JOHN STERLING, 



THERE'S A SILYER LINING TO EVERY CLOUD. 

^y,HE poet or priest who told us this 
^j^ Served mankind in the holiest way. 
For it ht up the earth with the star of 
bliss 
That beacons the soul with cheerful ray. 
Too often we wander despairing and blind. 

Breathing our useless murmurs aloud ; 
But 'tis kinder to bid us seek and find 
" A silver lining to everj' cloud." 

May we not walk in the dingle ground 

'Where nothing but autumn's dead leaves 
are seen. 
But search beneath them, and peeping around 

Are the young spring tufts of blue and green. 
Tis a beautiful eye that ever perceives 

Tlie presence of God in mortaUty's crowd; 
Tis a saving creed that thinks and believes 

" There's a silver lining to every cloud." 

Let us look closely before we condemn 

Bushes that bear nor bloom nor fruit, 
There may not be beauty in leaves or stem. 

But virtue may dwell far down at the root; 
And let us beware how we utterly spurn 

Brothers that seem all cold and proud, 
If their bosoms were opened, perchance we 
might learn 

" There's a silver lining to every cloud." 

Let us not cast out mercy and truth, 

When guilt is before us in chains and shame. 
When passion and vice have cankered youth. 

And age lives on with a branded name ; 
Something of good may still be there, 

Though its voice may never be heard aloud, 
For while black with the vapors of pestilent 
air, 

"There's a silver lining to every cloud." 

Sad are the sorrows that oftentimes come, 
Heavy and dull and blighting and chill. 



Ji 



THERE'S A SILVER LINING TO EVERY CLOUD. 



Shutting the hght from our heart and our 

home, 
. Marring our liopes and defying our will; 
But let us not sink beneath the woe, 

'Tis well perchance we are tried and bowed, 
For be sure, though we may not oft see it 
below, 
** There's a silver lining to every cloud." 

And when stern Death, with skeleton hand, 
Has snatched the flower that grew in our 
breast, 
Do we not think of a fairer land, 

Where the lost are found, and the weary at 
rest! 
Oh, the hope of the unknown future springs 
In its purest strength o'er the coffin and 
shroud ! 
The shadow is dense, but faith's spirit-voice 
sings 
*' There's a silver lining to every cloud. 

ELIZA COOK. 




THROUGH DARKNESS TO LIGHT. 

S we pass beneath the 
hills which have been 
shaken by earthquake 
and torn by convul- 
sions, we find that pe- 
riods of perfect repose 
succeed those of destruction. The pools 
of calm water lie clear beneath their fallen 
rocks, the water lilies gleam, and the 
reeds whisper among their shadows ; the 
village rises again over the forgotten 
graves, and its church tower, while 
through the storm, twilight proclaims a 
renewed appeal to his protection in whose 
hand are " all the corners of the earth and 
the strength of the hills is his also." .... 
It is just where " the mountains falling 
cometh to naught, and the rocks removed 
out of his place," that, in the process of 
years, the fairest meadows bloom between 
the fragments, the clearest rivulets mur- 
mur from their crevices among the flow- 
ers ; and the clustered cottages, each shel- 
tered beneath some strength of mossy 



stone, now to be removed no more, and 
with their pastured flocks around them, 
safe from the eagle's swoop and the wolf's 
ravine, have written upon their fronts, iYi 
simple words, the mountaineer's faith in 
the ancient promise, " Neither shalt thou 
be afraid of destruction when it cometh, 
for thou shalt be in league with the stones 
of the field, and the beasts of the field 
shall be at peace with thee." 

JOHN RUSKIN. 



RESIGNATION. 

THERE is no flock, however watched and 
tended, 
But one dead lamb is there ! 
There is no fireside howsoe'er defended. 
But has one vacant chair ! 

The air is full of farewells to the dying; 

And mournings for the dead ; 
The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, 

Will not be comforted ! 

Let us be patient ! These severe afflictions 

Not from the ground arise. 
But oftentimes celestial benedictions 

Assume this dark disguise. 

We see but dimly through the mists and 
vapors ; 

Amid these earthly damps 
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers 

May be heaven's distant lamps. 

There is no Death! What seems so is transition 

This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the life elysian, 

Whose portal we call Death. 

She is not dead, — the child of our aff'ection,— 

But gone unto that school 
Where sh e nolonger needs our p oor protection, 

And Christ himself doth rule. 

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, 

By guardian angels led, 
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, 

She lives, whom we call dead. 

Day after day we think what she is doing 
In those bright realms of air ; 



RESIGNATION. 



Year after year, her tender steps pursuing, 
Behold her grown more fair. 

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken 

The bond which nature gives, 
Thinking that our remembrance, though un- 
spoken, 

May reach her where she lives. 

Not as a child shall we again behold her; 

For when with raptures wild 
In our embraces we again enfold her, 

She will not be a child ; 

But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion. 

Clothed with celestial grace ; 
And beautiful with all the soul's expansion 

Shall we behold her face. 

And though at times impetuous with emotion 

And anguish long suppressed, 
The swelling heart heaves moaning like the 
ocean, 

That cannot be at rest, — 

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling 

We may not wholly stay ; 
By silence sanctifying, not concealing. 

The grief that must have way. 

H. W. LONGFELLOW. 



LET BY-GONES BE BY-GONES. 

LET by-gones be by-gones. If by-gones were 
clouded 
By aught that occasioned a pang of regret, 
0, let them in darkest oblivion be shrouded ; 
'Tis wise and 'tis kind to forgive and forget. 

Let by-gones be by-gones, and good be ex- 
tracted 

From ill over which it is folly to fret ; 
The wisest of mortals have foolishly acted — 

The kindest are those who forgive and forget. 

Let by-gones be by-gones. 0, cherish no 
longer 

The thought that the sun of affection has set : 
Eclipsed for a moment, its rays will be stronger. 

If you, like a Christian, forgive and forget. 

Let by-gones be by-gones. Your heart will 
be lighter 
When kindness of yours with reception has 
met : 



The flame of your love will be purer and 
brighter, 
If, God-like, you strive to forgive and forget. 

Let by-gones be by-gones. O, purge out the 
leaven 

Of malice, and try an example to set 
To others, who, craving the mercy of heaven. 

Are sadly too slow to forgive and forget. 

Let by-gones be by-gones. Remember how 

deeply 

To heaven's forbearance we all are in debt; 

They value God's infinite goodness too cheaply 

Who heed not the precept. Forgive and 

forget. 

— Chambers Journal, 



USES OF AFFLICTION. 

WHAT an interpreter of Scripture is 
affliction ! How many stars in its 
heaven shine out brightly in the 
night of sorrow and pain which were 
unperceived or overlooked in the garish 
day of our prosperity ! What an enlarger 
of Scripture is any other outer or inner 
event which stirs the depths of our hearts, 
which touches us near to the core and 
center of our lives ! 

Trouble of spirit, condemnation of 
conscience, sudden danger, strong temp- 
tation — when any of these overtake 
us, what veils do they take away, 
that we may see what hitherto we saw 
not ; what new domains of God's word 
do they bring within our spiritual ken ! 
How do promises which once fell flat 
upon our ears, become precious now ; 
psalms become our own which were before 
aloof from us ! How do we see things 
now with the eye which before we knew 
only by the hearing of the ear; which 
before men had told us, but now we our- 
selves have found ! So that on these 
accounts also the Scripture is fitted to be 
our companion, and to do lis good all the 
years of our life. 

BISHOP R. C. TRENCH, 



2d9 







THE face which, duly as the sun, 
Rose up for me with hfe begun, 
To mark all bright hours of the day 
With daily love, is dimmed away — 
And yet my days go on, go on. 

The tongue which, like a stream, could run 
Smooth music from the roughest stone, 
And every morning with " Good-day " 
Made each day good, is hushed away — 
And yet my days go on, go on. 

The heart which, like a staff was one 
For mine to lean and rest upon ; 
The strongest on the longest day 
With steadfast love, is caught away — 
And yet my days go on, go on. 

And cold before my summer's done, 
And deaf in Nature's general tune, 
And fallen too low for special fear, 
And here with hope no longer here — 
WTiile the tears drop, my days go on. 

The world goes whispering to its own, 
" This anguish pierces to the bone." 
And tender friends go sighing round, 
"What love can ever cure this wound?" 
My days go on, my days go on. 

The past rolls forward on the sun 
And makes all night. O dreams begun. 
Not to be ended ! Ended bliss ! 
And life that will not end in this ! 
My days go on, my days go on. 

Breath freezes on my lips to moan ; 
As one alone, once not alone, 
I sit and knock at Nature's door. 
Heart-bare, heart-hungry, very poor. 
Whose desolated days go on. 

I knock and cry . . . Undone, undone ! 
Is there no help, no comfort . . . none ? 
No gleaning in the wide wheat-plains 
Where others drive their loaded wains ? 
My vacant days go on, go on. 

This Nature, though the snows be down. 
Thinks kindly of the bird of June. 
The little red hip on the tree 
■ (s ripe for such. What is for me, 
W^ose days so winterly go on ? 



No bird am I to sing in June, 
And dared not ask an equal boon. 
Good nests and berries red are Nature's 
To give away to better creatures — 
And yet my days go on, go on. 

I ask less kindness to be done — 
Only to loose these pilgrim-shoon 
(Too early worn and grimed) with sweet 
Cool deathly touch to these tired feet. 
Till days go out which now go on. 

Only to lift the turf unmown 
From off the earth where it has grown, 
Some cubit-space, and say " Behold, 
Creep in poor heart beneath that fold. 
Forgetting how the days go on." 

What harm would that do ? Green anon 
The sward would quicken, overshone 
By skies as blue ; and crickets might 
Have leave to chirp there day and night 
While my new rest went on, went on. 

From gracious Nature have I won 
Such liberal bounty ? May I run 
So, lizard-like, within her side, 
And there be safe, who now am tried 
By days that painfully go on ? 

— A Voice reproves me thereupon, 

More sweet than Nature's when the drone 

Of bees is sweetest, and more deep, 

Than when the rivers overleap 

The shuddering pines, and thunder on. 

God's Voice, not Nature's — night and noon 
He sits upon the great white throne 
And listens for the creatures' praise. 
What babble we of days and days ? 
The Dayspring He, whose days go on. 

He reigns above. He reigns alone : 
Systems burn out and leave His throne : 
Fair mists of seraphs melt and fall 
Around Him, changeless amid all * — 
Ancient of days, whose days go on ! 

He reigns below, He reigns alone, — 
And having life in love foregone 
Beneath the crown of sovran thorns. 
He reigns the jealous God. Who mourns 
Or rules with Him, while days go on I 
260 



DR PROFUNDIS, 



By anguish which made pale the sun, 
I hear Him charge His saints that none 
Among the creatures anywhere 
Blaspheme against Him with despair, 
However darkly days go on. 

— Take from my head the thorn-wreath brown ! 
No mortal grief deserves that crown. 

supreme Love, chief misery, 
The sharp regalia are for Thee 
Whose days eternally go on ! 

For us, . . . whatever's undergone. 
Thou knowest, wiliest what is done. 
Grief may be joy misunderstood ; 
Only the Good discerns the good. 

1 trust Thee while my days go on. 

Whatever's lost, it first was won : 
We will not struggle nor impugn. 



Perhaps the cup was broken here 

That Heaven's new wine might show more 

clear. 
I praise Thee while my days go on f 

I praise Thee while my days go on ; 

I love Thee while my days go on ! 

Through dark and dearth, through fire and 

frost, 
With emptied arms and treasure lost 
I thank Thee while my days go on ! 

And, having in thy life-depth thrown 
Being and suff'ering (which are one), 
As a child drops some pebble small 
Down some deep well and hears it fall, 
Smiling ... so I ! Thy days go on ! 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 




THE DAY IS DONE. 



© 



HE day is done, and the darkness 
Falls from the wing of Night, 
As a feather is wafted downward 
From an eagle in his flight. 



I see the lights of the village 

Gleam through the rain and the mist ; 
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me, 

That my soul cannot resist ; 

A feeling of sadness and longing, 

That is not akin to pain. 
And resembles sorrow only 

As the mist resembles the rain. 

Come, read to me some poem, 
Some simple and heartfelt lay, 

That shall soothe this restless feeling, 
And banish the thoughts of day : 

Not from the grand old masters, 
Not from the bards sublime. 

Whose distant footsteps echo 
Through the corridors of time. 

For like strains of martial music, 
Their mighty thoughts suggest 



Life's endless toil and endeavor ; 
And to-night I long for rest. 

Read from some humbler poet. 

Whose songs gushed from his heart, 

As showers from the clouds of summer. 
Or tears from the eyelids start ; 

Who, through long days of labor, 

And nights devoid of ease, 
Still heard in his soul the music 

Of wonderful melodies. 

Such songs have power to quiet 

The restless pulse of care. 
And come like the benediction 

That follows after prayer. 

Then read from the treasured volume 

The poem of thy choice ; 
And lend to the rhyme of the poet 

The beauty of thy voice. 

And the night shall be filled with music, 
And the cares that infest the day 

Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, 
And as silently steal away. 

H. W. LONGFKLLOW, 



261 



MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 




HOU sluilt remember all the 
way which the Lord thy God 
hath led thee." All. the 
WAY — it is necessary that all 
the way should be remembered — the hill 
of difficulty as well as the valley of hu- 
miliation ; the time of prosperity as well 
as the time of pain. Necessary for our 
advantage that we may understand our 
position, learn the lessons of providence 
and gi"ace; necessary that we may con- 
struct a narrative, for every event in our 
history is connected and mutually inter- 
preted; necessary that we may trace the 
outworkings of Jehovah's plan in the 
successive achievements of our lives. And 



if by the memory of joy you are impressed 
with God's beneficence, kept in cheerful 
piety, and saved from the foul sin of re- 
pining ; and if by the memory of sorrow 
you are moulded into a gentler type, 
taught a softer sympathy, and receive a 
heavenward impulse, and anticipate a 
blessed reunion ; if by the memory of sin 
you are reminded of your frailty and re- 
buked of your pride, stimulated to repent- 
ance and urged to trust in God, then it 
will be no irksomeness, but a heaven-sent 
and precious blessing that you have thus 
remembered the way that the Lord hath 
led thee in the wilderness. 

WILLIAM M. PUNSHON. 



GRIEVING. 



SHE sat and watched the light of day 
Over the blue hills fading slow, 
And listened to the wind that wailed 
In crooning voice of long ago. 

The fire upon the hearth burned dim ; 

Out came night-shadows weird and wild ; 
And dead leaves swept across the path, 

Where once the blooming roses smiled. 

No word she spake, but silent sat 

As white and still as sculptured stone ; 

"iChe living, breathing world around 
A sepulchre had sudden grown, 

In which her buried life was laid, 

And over-writ this e^Ditaph : 
" Alas ! how soon man's fondest hopes 

Are scattered to the wind as chaff"." 

The clouds rolled o'er the misty moon ; 

In gentle sobs the raindrops spoke ; 
Fell drop by drop the maiden's tears ; 

And answering sobs the stillness broke. 

And through the wakening throbs of pain 
Slic found the living world once more; 

But sun and moon and stars had changed, 
And shone upon a foreign shore. 

Life's river ebbed in turbid waves. 
That late had sparkled at her feet ; 



A jarred note rang through every chord 
That until now had sounded sweet ; 

And in a darkened world her steps 
Must wander, till her weary soul, 

Through sorrow gaining strength, shall win 
For her a fadeless aureole. 

JULIA GODDARD. 

THE TROUBLES OF LIFE. 



nOMETIMES I compare the troubles 
/% which we have to undergo in the 
\J course of the year to a great bundle 
of fagots far too great for us to lift ; 
but God does not require us to carry 
the whole at once. He mercifully un- 
ties the bundle, and gives us first one 
stick, which we are to carry to-day, and 
then another, which we are to carry to- 
morrow, and so on. This we might easily 
manage if we would only take the burden 
appointed for us each day ; but we choose 
to increase our troubles by carrying yes- 
terday's stick over again to-day, and add- 
ing to-morrow's burden to our load before 
we are require to bear it. 

JOHN NEWTON. 



262 



SUFFERING A HIGHER PATH THAN DOING. 



AUL had anxiously inquired, 
1^^ ^^ What wouldst thou have me to 
'-c^jp^ do ? '^ Our Lord sends his minister 
to tell him, not what great thing heshall do, 
but what far greater thing he shall suffer. 
Suiferings are, after all, the great 
achievements of the Christian. Where one 
man is permitted to eifect mighty things 
for his Lord by carrying the words of the 
everlasting Gospel over the burning sands 
of Africa, or the frozen mountains of the 
north, thousands and tens of thousands are 
called to the high privilege of the Philip- 
pians of old, " not only to believe, but also 
to suffer for his name's sake." To sit on 
his right hand and on his left are not now 
to be given, but to drink of his cup of 
trial, and to be baptized with his baptism 



of affliction, are still among the choicest 
blessings which he bestows upon his peo- 
ple. Be not, then, disappointed, if, with 
every desire to do great things for your 
divine Master, you are denied the power 
or the opportunity. If, as it has been 
beautifully said, " They also serve who 
only stand and wait," how much more do 
they serve who are called upon to endure 
and to suffer ! Yes ; in the chamber of 
sickness, upon the bed of pain, you may 
as greatly glorify your Redeemer as amid 
the trials of the mission or the tortures of 
the stake ; and often does it please your 
heavenly Father that while you are medi- 
tating what great things you shall do for 
Christ, he is preparing the great things 
you shall suffer. 



K AITTH 



|E will not weep : for God is standing by 
us, 
And tears will blind us to the blessed 
sight : 
We will not doubt, if darkness still doth try us. 
Our souls have promise of serenest light. 

We will not faint, if heavy burdens bind us. 
They press no harder than our souls can 
bear ; 

The thorniest way is lying still behind us. 
We shall be braver for the past despair. 

not in doubt shall be our journey's ending; 

Sin with its fears shall leave us at the last : 
All its best hopes in glad fulfillment blending. 

Life shall be with us when the Death is past. 

Help us, Father ! when the world is pressing 
On our frail hearts, that faint without their 
friend ; 

Help us, O Father! let thy constant blessing 
Strengthen our weakness — till the joyful end. 

WILLIAM HENRY HURLBERT. 



LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT. 

'IT EAD, kindly Light, amid th' encircling 
By gloom, 

Lead Thou me on ; 
The night is dark, and I am far from home; 

Lead Thou me on ; 
Keep Thou my feet ; I do not ask to see 
The distant scene — one step enough for me. 

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou 

Shouldst lead me on ; 
I loved to choose and see my path; but now 

Lead Thou me on. 
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, 
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past 

years. 

So long Thy power has bless'd me, sure it still 

Will lead me on 
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till 

The night is gone. 
And with the moon those angel faces smile 
Which I have loved long since, and lost a 

while. 

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. 



263 



SUN AND SHADOW. 



S I look from the isle, o'er its billows of 
green, 
To the billows of foam-crested blue, 
Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen, 

Half dreaming my eyes will pursue ; 
Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray 

As the chaff in the stroke of the flail ; 
Kow white i^.s the sea-gull she flies on her way, 
The sun gleaming bright on her sail. 

Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun, — 
Of breakers that whiten and roar : 

How little he cares if in shadow or sun 
They see him who gaze from the shore ! 

He looks to the beacon that looms from the 
reef, 



To the rock that is under his lee, 
As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted 
leaf, 
O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea. 

Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves 

Where life and its ventures are laid, 
The dreamers who gaze while we battle the 
waves, 

May see us in sunshine or shade ; 
Yet true to our course, though our shadow 
grow dark, 

We'll trim our broad sail as before, 
And stand by the rudder that governs the bark, 

Nor ask how we look from the shore ! 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 




THE ODE OF GOOD, 



E 



TERNAL Spring and Source 

Of happiness and weal ! 
Indwelling and unfailing Force ! 



Who dost Thyself reveal 
In every jocund day, and restful night; 
In every dawn serenely bright ; 
In every tide of yearning which doth roll, 
Heavenward, some growing soul ! 

What were life save for Thee 

But pain and miser}^ — 

To have no more longing, but to be 

Below the brute, below the tree. 

Below the little stone, or speck of dust. 

Which are themselves, and are made just. 

Conforming to the law which bade them 

grow. 
Not dreaming dreams of heaven in their estate 

so low ! 

The calm brutes live and are. 

Tranquil and unafraid. 

Keeping their nature only ; the faint star 

Pursues its orbit always though of Thee 

It knows not, yet its vast periphery 

Is ordered by Thy hand ; by Thee were laid 

The fixed foundations of the unfathomed 

sea ; — 
A.11 these obey Thee, though they may not 

know 



What law it is that holds theiH. Man alone 
Sees Thee, and knowing Thee, averts his face, 
And yet is higher than all for his disgrace, 
Which were impossible to brute, or tree, or 
stone. 

How shall a finite voice 

Praise Thee who art too high for any praise. 

Great Scheme, that by eternal, perfect ways 

Farest and dost rejoice ! 

Thou wert before Life was, or 111. 

Thou rulest all things still ; 

The Governance and Regimen is Thine, 

Oh Plenitude divine ! 

Of all the orbs that roll 

Through all thy infinite space. 

We are through Thee alone, each in its place. 

Organic, Inorganic, great and small ; 

Thou dost inspire and keep us all ; — 

Earth, sky, and sea; herb, tree, insect, and 

brute ; 
All Thy created excellences mute, 
To Man of large discourse, and the undying 

soul. 

We know not by what Name our tongues shall 

call 
Thee or Thy Essence, nor can Thought as yet 
Gain those ineffable heights where Thou art 

set, 



264 



THE ODE OF GOOD. 



As from a watch-tower guarding all. 

Thou girdest Thyself round with mystery, 

As Thy great sun behind an embattled cloud, 

Or some wrapt summit, never seen ; 

Yet thy veiled presence cheers us on our road. 

With eyes bent down too much on earth and 
bowed, 

We toil and do forget 

All but our daily labor and its load ; 

Yet art Thou there the while, felt yet unseen. 

Oh universal Good, and Thy great Will 

Directs our footsteps still — 

Directs them, though they come to stray 

From the appointed way ; 

Lights them, though for a while they wander 
far. 

Led by some feeble baleful star. 

Which can allure them when the blinding 
fold 

Of mist is on the hill side, and the cold 

Clouds which make green our lives, descend- 
ing, hide 

Death's steeps on every side. 

We know not what Thou art — 

Whether the Word of some all-perfect Will 

Inborn and nourished in each human heart, 

Some hidden and mysterious good, 

Obeyed, not understood ; 

Or whether the harmonious note 

Of some world-symphony divine, 

To which the perfect Scheme of things, 

Ever advancing perfectly 

To high fulfilment, sings. 

We know not what Thou art, and yet we love ; 

We know not where Thou dwell'st, yet still 

above 
We turn our eyes to Thee, knowing Thou wilt 

take 
Our yearnings and wilt treasure them and 

make 
Our little lives fulfil themselves and Thee : 
And in this trust we bear to be. 

Oh Light so white and pure, 

Oft clouded and yet sure ! ^ 

Oh inner Radiance of the heart. 

That drawest all men, whatsoe'er Thou art I 

Spring of the soul, that dost remove 

Winter with rays of love. 

And dost dispel of Thy far- working might 

The clouds of 111 and Night, 

For every soul which cometh to the earth ; 

That beamest on us at our birth. 

And paling somewhat in life's grosser day, 



Lightest, a pillar of fire, our evening way • 
What matter by what Name 
We call Thee? — still art Thou the same, 
God we call Thee, or Good, — still through the 

strife 
Unchangeable alone, of all our changeful life, 
With awe-struck souls we seek Thee, we adore 
Thy greatness ever more and more, 
We turn to Thee with worship, till at last. 
Our journey well-nigh past. 
When now our day of Life draws to its end, 
Looking, with less of awe and more of love, 
To Thy high throne above. 
We see no dazzling brightness as of old. 
No kingly splendors cold. 
But the sweet Presence of a heavenly Friend. 




THE ODE OF EVIL. 

)H, who shall sing of Life and not 
of 111? 
The essence of our will 
Is fullest liberty to stray. 
From out the green and blessed 
way. 

Amid the desert wastes of drought and death. 

This is the power that makes us free, 

This of our Being is the penalty ; 

And maybe the Eternal Will, 

Clothing itself with form to bid Creation be, 

Took to itself some boundary, and awhile. 

Self-limited, made vile 

And subjected to Law the Majesty 

Which all the universe of space did fill. 

Evil is Life, 

The conflict of great laws pervading space ; 
Evil is strife. 

Which keeps the creature in its ordered place. 
If any hand divine should e'er withdraw 
The fixed coercive potency of Law, 
Surely the universe of things would fiule 
And cease and be unmade. 
Wliere Law is, there is Good, 
And freedom to obey or to transgress ; 
Else 'twere no Law, but, weaker far and less, 
If one created being might not the thing it 
would. 



Young lives spring up and fade, 
Wither and are opprest. 



265 



THE ODE OF EVIL. 



Toil takes the world, and pain, 
And all the things that God has made 
Travail and groan and fain would be at rest, 
And Wrong prevails again. 
And we — we lift a hopeless eye 
Up to the infinite sky, 
Mourning the 111 that is, and shall be yet, 
Weak creatures who forget 
The very law and root of Life, 
That it is sown in pain and nursed in w^oe and 
strife. 

The evil blight of war 

Torments the race from age to age, 

And man slays man through all the years 

that are, 
And savage lust and brutal rage 
DeTorm this glorious heritage of earth. 
We shudder and grow faint, 
Knowing the far fair dreams of seer and 

saint 
Show thin and little worth. 
The young life, rising, sinks in sloughs of 

sense, 
And wanders and is lost. 
Alas ! for days of young-eyed innocence. 
Alas ! for the calm hours ere, passion-tost. 
The young soul grew, a white flower sweet 

and pure. 
Yet this is sure, 

That not in tranquil zones of endless calm 
Springs up the victor's palm, 
But blown by circling storms which blot the 

sky, 
Nor fitting were it to the eye 
Always to look upon a cloudless sun, — 
(j-rown blind with too much light before the 

journey done. 

The victories of Right 

Are born of strife. 

There were no Day were there no Night, 

Nor, without dying, Life. 

There only doth Right triumph, where the 

Wrong 
Is mightiest and most strong ; 
There were no Good, indeed, were there no 111. 
And when the final victory shall come. 
Burst forth, oh Awful Sun, and draw Creation 

home ! 

Not within Time or Space 

Lines drawn in opposite ways grow one, 

But in some Infinite place 

Before the Eternal throne ; 



There, ways to-day divergent. Right and 

Wrong, 
Approach the nearer that they grow more 

long. 
There at the Eternal feet. 
Fused, joined, and grown complete. 
The circle rounds itself, the enclosing wall 
Of the Universe sinks down, and God is all in 

all!- 

ENDURANCE. 

HOW much the heart may bear, and yet not 
break ! 
How much the flesh may sufi'er, and not 
die! 
I question much if any pain or ache 

Of soul or body brings our end more nigh : 
Death chooses his own time : till that is sworn, 
All evils may be borne. 

We shrink and shudder at the surgeon's knife, 

Each nerve recoiling from the cruel steel 

Whose edge seems searching for the quivering 

life, 

Yet to our sense the bitter pangs reveal, 

That still, although the trembling flesh be torn, 

This also can be borne. 

We see a sorrow rising in our way, 

And try to flee from the approaching ill ; 
We seek some small escape ; we weep and 
pray ; 
But when the blow falls, then our hearts are 
still; 
Not that the pain is of its sharpness shorn, 
But that it can be borne. 

We wind our life about another life; 

We hold it closer, dearer than our own : 
Anon it faints and fails in deathly strife. 
Leaving us stunned, and stricken, and 
alone ; 
But ah ! we do not die with those we mourn, — 
This also can be borne. 

Behold, we live through all things — famines 
thirst. 
Bereavement, pain ; all grief and misery, 
All woe and sorrow ; life inflicts its worst 

On soul and body — but we cannot die. 
Though we be sick, and tired, and faint, and 
worn, 
Lo, all things can be borne. 

ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN. 



266 



THEY SAID. 



THEY said of her, " She never can have 
felt 
The sorrows that great, earnest natures 
feel," 
They said, " Her placid lips have never 
spelt 
Hard lessons, taught hy pain. Her eyes 

reveal 
No passionate yearning, no perplexed 
appeal 
To other eyes. Life and her heart have 

dealt 
With her but lightly." When the Pilgrims 

dwelt 
First by their Kock, lest savage feet should 
steal 
To precious graves with desecrating tread. 
The burial-field was with the plowshare cros- 
sed; 
And there her silken curls in the light maize 
tossed. 
With thanks those Pilgrims ate their bitter 
bread. 



While peaceful harvests hid what they prized 
most: 
I thought of them when this of her they said. 

They of this other said, " No heart has she, 

Else would she not with ready prattle smile 
On all who cross her path, and merrily 
The steps of child, man, bird and brute 

beguile 
With overflow of winsome prank and wile. 
How shallow must this sparkling bubbler be ! " 
And did you never down a hill-side see 

A laughing brook go dancing, mile on mile, 
Fresh from a never-failing mountain spring, 
Whose depths of sweetness none might 
sound or guess ? 
The spring was the brook's heart, which 

sought to fling 
Gleams of its hidden joy on everything. 
Life's deep wells yield perennial cheerful- 
ness. 
They spake of her from their own shallow- 
ness. 

LUCY LARCOM. 



IF WE KNEW, 



IF we knew the woe and the heart-ache 
Waiting for us down the road, 
If our lips could taste the w^ormwood, 
If our backs could feel the load ; 
Would we waste to-day in wishing 

For a time that ne'er can be ; 
Would we wait in such impatience 
For our ships to come from sea ? 

[f we knew the baby fingers 

Pressed against the window-pane. 
Would be cold and stifl" to-morrow — 

Never trouble us again ; 
Would the bright eyes of our darling 

Catch the frown upon our brow? 
Would the prints of rosy fingers 

Vex us as they do now ? 

An, these little ice-cold fingers. 

How they point our memories back 
To the hasty words and actions 

Strewn along our backward track ! 
How those little hands remind us. 

As in snowy grace they lie. 
Not to scatter tliorns — but roses — 

For our reaping by and by ! 



Strange we never prize the music 

Till the sweet-voiced bird has flown ; 
Strange that we should slight the violets 

Till the lovely flowers are gone ; 
Strange that summer skies and sunshine 

Never seem one-half so fair 
As when winter's snowy pinions 

Shake their white down in the air ! 

Lips from which the seal of silence 

None but God can roll away, 
Never blossomed in such beauty 

As adorns the mouth to-day ; 
And sweet words that freight our memory 

With their beautiful perfume, 
Come to us in sweeter accents 

Through the portals of the tomb. 

Let us gather up the sunbeams 

Lying all along our path : 
Let us keep the wheat and roses, 

Casting out the thorns and chafl"; 
Let us find our sweetest comfort 

In the blessings of to-day ; 
With a patient hand removing 

All the briers from our way. 



L. M. R 



267 



THE LAST AUTUMNAL DAY. 







>0,gWHEF^E 



Co>>5^ 




THE lengthen'd Night elaps'd, the Morning 
shines 
Serene, in all her dewy beauty bright, 
Unfolding fair the last Autumnal day ; 
And now the morning sun dispels the fog : 
The rigid hoar-frost melts before his beam, 
And hung on ev'ry spray, on ev'ry blade 
Of grass, the myriad dew-drops twinkle round. 

* * * In pensive guise 

Oft let me wander o'er the russet mead, 
And through the sadden'd grove, where scarce is 

heard 
One djdng strain, to cheer the Woodman's toil. 
Haply some widow'd songster pours his plaint, 
Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny 

copse ; 
"V^Hiile congregated thrushes, linnets, larks, 
And each wild throat, whose artless strains so 

late 
Swell'd all the music of the swarming shades, 
Eobb'd of their tuneful souls, now shiv'ring sit 
On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock ; 
With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes, 
And naught save chatt'ring discord in their note. 

THOMSON, 




FROM SHADOW INTO SUNSHINE AT LAST. 



y^HERE he awaits for his release, 

There in God finds perfect peace ; 
Till the long years end at last, 
And he too at length has past. 
From the sorrows and the fears, 
From the anguish and the tears, 



From the desolate distress 
Of this world's great loneliness, 
From its withering and it's blight, 
From the shadows of its night, 
Into God's pure sunshine bright. 



BISHOP R. C. TRENCH, 




268 










AUTUMN OF LIFE 



LABOR AND REST. 



A Call to Work . 
Approaching Autumn 
Autumn 
Autumn Leaves 
Cease not to Labor 
Chrysanthemums 



Do Good 
Duty 



Equinoctial 
Farm Yard Song 



Good Night 
Gradatim 



Harvest Home 
Haste not. Rest not 



Industry 



Labor 

Labor and Rest 
Labor is Worship 
Labor Song 



Manhood 
Make your Mark 
Middle Age 

Never Despair 



Ode of Labor 
Ode of Manhood 
Ode oi Rest. 
Onward 
Opportunity for Work 



Press On 



Rest 

Rest at Evening 

Restlessness 

The Achievements of Labor 

Th€ Duty of Labor 



48 

36 

8 

4 

45 
7 

44 
22 

4 
33 

15 

38 

27 
39 

33 

10 

48 
18 
36 

8 
38 

44 



II 

3 
13 
47 
39 



The Farmer's Boy 

The Fisherman's Song 

The Forging of the Anchor 

The Hour of Rest 

The Laborer 

The Mowers 

The Old Fair Story 

The PloU:riiman 

The River of Li e 

The U.eful Plough 

The Village Blacksmith 

To Autumn 

Toil and Be Glad 

To Sleep 

True Rest 

Whatever You Do, Do 

Work .... 

Work and its Achievement 

Work Away 

Working and Waiting 

Working under Disadvantages 

Work without Weariness 

SINGLE LIFE. 

An Imposition on the Single 



it Well 




Bachelor's Fare 
Bachelor's Hall 
Brother and Sister 



Cousin Jane 

Epitaph on the Unmated 
From Endymioi 
Kizzy Kringle 



Not All Alone 
Not a Mistake 



[g Old Bachelors 



40 Sailed To-night 

30 Soliloquy of aBachelor 

31 Solitude of Single Women 

32 Song of Anticipation 

31 Sweetly are the Wild Birds Singing 

269 



42 

17 

24 
16 
45 
37 

6 
20 

5 

4C 

35 

9 

34 

26 

17 
45 
20 

41 
22 

34 

40 
46 



5« 

51 
50 
53 

51 

53 

52 

56 

49 
6r 



57 
52 
64 
64 
63 



INDEX. 



Talk not of Wasted Affection 

The Bachelors 

The Bachelor's Dream . . . . 
The Old Bachelor .... 

The Old Maid 

The Old Maid's Prayer to Diana 

The Unloved 

The Wounded Heart 

Unmarried Women . . . 

WEDDED LIFE. 

A Caution ..... 

A Darkey's Counsel to the Newly Married 

Advice of David Coppertield's Aunt 

Advice to Young Married Couples 

A Home Picture 

A Kiss at the Door 

A Question . . . 

Arteveldes' Character of his Wife 

A Wife .... 

A Wife's Appeal to her Husband 

Choice of a Wife 
Conjugal Felicity 
Continue your Courtship 

David Copperfield and his Child Wife 

Few Happy Matches 

Hail, Woman . . , 

How the Gentlemen do After Marriage 
How the Gentlemen do Before Marriage 



Love Lightens Labor 



Man's Love 
Marrying for Beauty 
Matrimony 
Mutual Forgiveness 

Penelope, The Faithful Wife 

Tell Your Wife 

The Absent Wife 

The Exile To His Wife 

The Good Wife 

The Husband's Prayer 

The Old Wedding Ring 

The Shepherd's Wife's Song 

The True Wife 

The Trying Hour 

The Unreasonable Husband 

The Wife 

Thirty-Five 

Three Loves in a Life 

To My Wife 

Wedded Life 
Without and Within . 
Woman's Love 



THE HOME, 



65 
58 
54 
60 

55 
56 
52 
65 

66 



92 
79 
95 
78 
^Z 
79 
86 

78 
80 
92 

82 
91 
94 

lOI 

81 
92 

96 
81 

84 
91 
74 
94 



76 
82 
85 
77 
80 
86 

93 
100 

95 
79 
87 
86 

83 
93 



A Cheerful Home 
A Godly Home 



139 
no 



A Happy Home Defined . 

A Home ..... 

A Picture 

Art in the Home .... 
A Shepherd's Life .... 
A Song for Hearth and Home 
A Winter Evening Hymn To Mv Fire 



By The Fireside 



Cheerfulness at Home 
Come Home 

Conversation in the Home 
Courtesy in the Home . 



Definition of Home 

Family Life a Test of 
Farmer John 



no, 116 



Heart-Rest . 

Heaven a Home 

Home . 

Home — A Duet 

Home Again 

Home Affection 

Home and its Queen 

Home Amusements 

Home a Place of Rest . 

Home Friends . 

Home Influence . 

Home Instruction 

Home of Childhood 

Home of our Childhood 

Home Religion 

Home, Sweet Home 

Home the Cradle of the Virtues . 

Home the Sweetest Type of Heaven 

Home Worship .... 

How to Make Home Happy 

I Knew by the Smoke that so Gracefu 
Curled 



Piety 



98 Joys of Home 



Kind Manners at Home 
Kind Words at Home 

Music in the Home 
My Ain Fireside 
My Own Fireside 
My Wife and Child . 

News From Home 

Ode to Solitude 

Our Country and our Home 

Religion in the Home 



The Christian at Home 

The Cotter's Saturday Night 

The Farmer's Home 

The Grand Idea of Home 

The Happy Home 

The Home 

The Home Builds the House 

The Home Circle 

The Home Concert 

270 



120 

113 

117 

136 
no 
112 
112 

III 



T24 
121, 139 

135 

115 



IT4 

117 

152 
128 

122 
116 
123 
138 
141 
138 
131 
149 
130 

137 
142 

n8 

I2i 

no 

151 
126 
146 



29, 



[24, 



"3 

107 

142 
137 



140 
n I 
120 
122 

107 

IT7 

121 
134 

135 
143 
i\o 

137 

13 T 

l'9 
1-8 
127 



INDEX, 



The Home Develops Character 

The Home Multiplies Happiness 

The Home Hospitality 

The Household Woman 

The Island of Home 

The Light of Home 

The Love of Home . 

The Means to Attain Happy Life 

The Mother Wan s Her JJoy 

Two Homes . . . • 

Two Pictures 

We Can Make Home Happy 
When I Come Hume 



FATHER AND MOTHER 

A Courteous Mother .... 
A Mother's Cares . , 
A Mother's Heart .... 

A Mother's Love ..... 
A Word With Parents About Their Children 

Courtesies to Parents .... 

Her Mother's Ear .... 



Mother 

Mothers and Sons 

Mother's Empire . 

My Good Old Fashioned Mother 

My Mother Dear , 

My Mother's Hands . 

Ode of Fatherhood 

Ode of Motherhood . 

Our Lily of Love . 

Our Mother .... 



Parental Authority 
Patience, Mother 

Responsibility of Parents 

The Father's Duty . 
The Mother . 
The Mother at Home 
The Mother's Day-Dream 
The Mother's Sorrow 
Tired Mothers 
To My Mother 
Tribute to a Mother 



107 
126 
132 
131 
"5 
"5 
145 
130 

105 
119 



171 

174 
175 
168 
169 

176 

159 

166 

175 
170 
161 
164 
157 

153 

154 
160 
164 

167 
174 

163 

168 
56, 158 

165 
162 

173 
161 
166 
162 



FRIENDSHIP AND MEMORIES. 



After Sunset 

A Gift <if Friendship 

A Temple 10 Friendship 



Benedicte 
Bill and Joe 



Communion of Souls 



Depar'ed Days . 
Dreams and Realities . 



184 

182 
198 

204 
199 

177 

iSi 
180 



Early Recollections .... 
Example of Friendship .... 

Farewell! But Whenever You Welcome th 
Hour ...... 

Fireside Musing 

Friendship .... 177 

Friendship Flawed 

Friendship of Damon and Pythias 

Go Where Glory Waits Thee 



1:6 Importance of Friendship 
124 I Remembir, I Remember 

Lasting Friendship 



Memories . 
Memory's W^ildwood 
My Childhood Home 
My Playmate 



Oft in the Stilly Night 
O d Friends . 



Parted Friends . 

Relation of Friends 

Sanctified Friendship 

The Age of Wisdom 

The Canieen 

The Chess Board . 

The Dead Friend 

The Fire of Driftwood . 

The Intercourse of Friendship 

The Memory of the Heart . 

The Old Arm Chair . 

The Passage 

The Quarrel of Friends 

The Retreat .... 

The Strarger on the Sill 

Twenty Years Ago 

We Are Brethren A' 

We Have Been Friends Together 

What Migrht Be Done 

When on My Bed 



SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW. 



202, 



'83 
[89 



208 

187 

97. 205 

204 

J 85 



195 
199 



78, 183 
206 
188 
192 



196 
196 

185 

203 

207 

186 
200 
206 
186 
201 
201 
188 
200 
180 
190 
201 
189 
190 

197 

195 

202 
186 



A Contrast 

Adversity . . . . 

After the Burial 

Angel of Patience 

A Prayer for One in Affliction 

Break, Break, Break 
By-and-bye 



Cheerfulness 

Clouds 

Consolation 



Early Friendship 



204 



David's Harp 
Death of Little Nell 
De Profundis . 




271 



INDEX. 



Endurance . . , 

Eugenie . 

Era's Death . 

Faith 

Fragment 

From Shadow in^o Sunlight at Last 



Going Home 
Grieving . 



Home Bereavements 
Home Shadows 
Hymn to Adversity 

If We Knew . 

In the Shadow 

It Might Have Been 



Joy Bringers 



Lament for the Dead 
Lead, Kindly Light 
Let By-Gones be By-Gones 
Light and Dark 
Lights and Shadows . 
Light Through Tears 

Make Some One Happy 
Man was Made to Mourn 
Memories of the Way 



November 



On Another's Sorrow 

Passing Under the Rod 
Per Pacem Ad Lucem 



Resignation 



Shadows . . 
Sitting in the Sun 



266 
246 
238 
263 

253 
268 

256 
262 

233 
221 

254 

267 
218 

257 

255 

219 

263 

259 
228 

215 

243 

234 
229 
262 

248 

227 

235 
245 

258 

229 
254 



Smiles ..... 

Sorrow for the Dead 

Suffering a Higher Path than Doing 

Sun and Shadow 

Sunlight and Shadow 

Sunshine 

Sunshine After Storm 
Sunshine for the Sorrowing . 

The Bright Side .... 

The Changed Cross . 

The Contrast .... 

The Day is Done 

The Days that Are no More . 

The Dead House 

The Grave 

The Happy Hour 

The House is Dark and Dreary 

The Last Autumnal Day . 

The Light of a Cheerful Face. 

The Ode of Evil 

The Ode of Good 

The Rainy Day .... 

The Three Fishers ... 

The Troubles of Life 

There's a Silver Lining to Every Cloud 

They're Dear Fish to Me . 

They Said 

Thorns and Roses 

Through Darkness to Light . 

To a Red Breast 

To Autumn 

Transient Troubles . 

Trials 



Uses of Affliction 



Weary 

Weep No More 

We Know Not What is Before Us 
What the End Shall Be . 
Wrecked . . • • « 



225 

222 
263 
264 
209 
213 
227 
223 

: 1 9, 249 

237 
223 
261 
245 
243 
244 

257 
223 
268 
242 
265 
264 
220 
224 
262 
257 
220 
267 
214 
258 
210 

257 
250 
250 

259 

240 

232 
228 
253 
215 




Til 




HIS LAST LOVE LETTER. 




(1) 



Age is opportunity no less 
Than youth itself, though in another dress; 
And as the evening twilight fades away 
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day. 

H. W. LONGFELLOW, 

Age is not all decay ; it is the ripening, the swelling of the fresh life within, that 
withers and bursts the husk. george macdonald. 

So may'st thou live till like ripe fruit thou drop 

Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease 

Gather' d, not parsely plucked, for death mature. 

JOHN MILTON. 



Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty ; 

For in my youth I never did apply 

Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood ; 

Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo 

The means of weakness and debility ; 

Therefore my age is as a lusty winter. 

Frosty, but kindly. wm. shakspeare. 



I venerate old age, and love not the man who can look without emotion upon th» 
sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and tho 
shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding. 

H. W. LONGFELLOW. 

But an old age serene and bright, 
And lovely as a Lapland night, 
Shall lead thee to thy grave. 

WM. WORDSWORTH. 



A truly Christian man can look down like an eternal sun upon the autumn of his 
existence ; the more sand has passed through the hour glass of life, the more clearly 
can he see through the empty glass. Earth, too, is to him a beloved spot, a beautiful 
meadow, the scene of his childhood's sports, and he hangs upon this mother of our 
first life with the love with which a bride, full of childhood's recollections, clings to a 
beloved mother's breast the evening before the day on which she resigns herself to 
the bride-groom's heart. j. p. richter. 

Cast me not oif in the time of old age ; forsake me not when my strength faileth. 

Oh God, Thou hast taught me from my youth ; and hitherto have I declared Thy 
wondrous works. 

Now also when I am old and gray-headed, O God, forsake me not ; until I have 
showed strength unto this generation, and Thy power to every one that is to comi^ 

BIBLE. 

Time's current may wear wrinkles in the face, but not reach the heart. 
How beaufiful can time with goodness make an old man look. 

DOUGLASS JERROLD. 

2 




THE ODE OF AGE. 



/HEEE is a sweetness in autumnal days, 
Which many a lip doth praise ; 
When the earth, tired a little and 
grown mute 

Of song, and having borne its fruit, 

Eests for a little space ere winter come. 

It is not sad to turn the face towards home, 

Even though it shows the journey nearly 
done ; 

It is not sad to mark the westering sun. 

Even though we know the night doth come. 

Silence there is, indeed, for song, 

Twilight for noon ; 

But for the steadfost soul and strong 

Life's autumn is as June. 

As June itself, but clearer, calmer far; 
Here come no passion-gusts to mar. 
No thunder-clouds or rains to beat 
To earth the blossoms and the wheat, 



No high tumultuous noise 

Of youth's self-seeking joys, 

But a cold radiance white 

As the moon shining on a frosty night. 

To-morrow is as yesterday, scant change, 

Little of new or strange, 

No glamour of false hope to daze. 

Nor glory to amaze. 

Even the old passionate love of love or child 

A temperate affection mild. 

And ever the recurring thought 

Returning, though unsought : 

How strange the scheme of things ! how briet 

a span 
The little life of man ! 
And ever as we mark them, fleeter and more 

fleet, 
Tlie days and months and years, gliding with 

winged feet. 



THE ODE OF AGE, 



And ever as the hair grows grey, 

And the eves dim, 

And the lithe form which toiled the live-long 

day, 
The stalwart limb, 
Begin to stiffen and grow slow, 
A higher joy they know : 
To spend the season of the waning year, 
Ere comes the deadly chill. 
In works of mercy, and to cheer 
The feet which toil against life's rugged hill ; 
To have known the trouble and the fret, 
To have known it, and to cease 
In a pervading peace. 

Too calm to suffer pain, too hving to forget, 
And reaching down a succoring hand 
To where the sufferers are. 
To hft them to the tranquil heights afar, 
Whereon Time's conquerors stand. 

And when the precious hours are done, 
How sweet at set of sun 
To gather up the fair laborious day !— 
To have struck some blow for right 
With tongue or pen; 
To have smoothed the path to light 
Por w^andering men ; 
To have chased some fiend of 111 away ; 
A little backward to have thrust 
The instant powers of Drink and Lust; 
To have borne down Giant Despair ; 
To have dealt a blow at Care ! 
How sweet to light again the glow 
Of warmer fires than youth's, tho' all the 
blood runs slow ! 

Oh! is there any joy, 

Of all that come to girl or boy 

Or manhood's calmer weal and ease. 

To vie with these? 

Here is some fitting profit day by day, 

Which none can render less ; 

Some glorious gain Fate cannot take away, 

Nor Time depress. 

Oh, brother, fainting on your road ! 

Poor sister, whom the righteous shun ! 



There comes for you, ere life and strength be 

done, 
An arm to bear your load. 
A feeble body, maybe bent, and old. 
But bearing 'midst the chihs of age 
A deeper glow than youth's ; a nobler rage ; 
A calm heart yet not cold. 
A man or woman, withered perhaps, or bent, 



To whom pursuit of gold or fame 

Is as a fire grown cold, an empty name, 

^^^om thoughts of Love no more allure, 

Who in a self-made nunnery dwell, 

A cloistered calm and pure, 

A beatific peace greater than tongue can tell 

And sweet it is to take. 

With something of the eager haste of youth 

Some fainter glimpse of Truth 

For its own sake ; 

To observe the ways of bee, or plant, or bird ; 

To trace in Nature the ineffable Word, ^ 

Which by the gradual wear of secular time. 

Has worked its work sublime ; 

To have touched,, with infinite gropings dim, 

Nature's extremest outward rim ; 

To have found some weed or shell unknown 
before ; 

To advance Thought's infinite march a foot- 
pace more ; 
To make or to declare laws just and sage ; 
These are the joys of Age. 

Or by the evening hearth, in the old chair, 
With children's children at our knees, 
So like, yet so unlike the little ones of old- 
Some little lad with curls of gold, 
Some little maid demurely fair, 
To sit, girt round with ease. 
And feel how sweet it is to live, 
Careless what fate may give ; 
To think, with gentle yearning mind. 
Of dear souls who have crossed the Infinite 

Sea; 
To muse with cheerful hope of what shall be 
For those we leave behind 
When the night comes which knows no earthly 

morn ; 
Yet mingled with the young in hopes and 

fears, 
And bringing from the treasure-house of 

years, 
Some fair-set counsel long-time worn ; 
To let the riper days of life, 
The tumult and the strife, 
Go by, and in then- stead 
Dwell ^ith the living past, so living, yet so 

dead : 
The mother's kiss upon the sleeper's brow, 
The little fish caught from the brook, 
The dead child-sister's gentle voice and look, 
The school-days and the father's parting 
hand ; 



THE ODE OF AGE, 



The days so far removed, yet oh ! so near, 
So fall of precious memories dear ; 
The wonder of flying Time, so hard to under- 
stand ! 

-S'ot in clear eye or ear 

Dwells our. chief profit here. 

We are not as the brutes, who fade and make 

no sign ; 
\Ve are sustained where'er we go, 
In happiness and woe, 
By some indwelling faculty divine, 
Which Hfts us from the deep 
Of failing senses, aye, and duller brain, 
And wafts us back to youth again ; 
And as a \T.sion fair dividing sleep, 
Pierces the vasts behind, the voids before. 
And opens to us an invisible gate, 
And sets our winged footsteps, scorning Time 

and Fate, 
At the celestial door. 



OLD AGE COMING. 

The original is such broad Scotch that I have given Mrs, 
L. M. Child's rendering of this quaint and beautiful piece. 
The beauty is not destroyed, while it is made intelligent 
toalL 

IS that Old Age, who's knocking at the 
gate ? 
^=. I trow it is. He sha'n't be asked to wait. 
You're kindly welcome, fiiend ! Xay, do 
not fear 
To show yourself! You'll cause no trouble 

here. 
I know there 're some who tremble at your 

name. 
As though you brought with you reproach or 

shame; 
And who of thousand lies would bear the sin, 
Rather than own you for their kith and kin. 
But far from shirking you as a disgrace. 
Thankful I am to live to see jour face. 
Xor will I e'er disown you, or take pride 
To think how long I might your visit hide. 
I'll do my best to make you well respected. 
And fear not for your sake to be neglected. 
Now you have come, and, through all kinds 

of weather, 
We're doomed from this time forth to jog 

together, 



I'd fain make compact with you, firm and 

strong, 
On terms of give and take, to hold out long. 
If you'll be civil, I will liberal be ; 
Witness the list of what I'll give to thee. 
First then, I here make o'er, for good and aye, 
All youthful fancies, whether bright or gay. 
Beauties and graces, too, might be resigned. 
But much I fear they would be hard to find; 
For 'gainst your daddy Time they could not 

stand, 
Nor bear the grip of his relentless hand. 
But there's my skin, which you may further 

crinkle, 
And write your name, at length, on ev'ry 

wrinkle. 
On my brown lock your powder you may 

throw. 
And bleach them to your fancy, white as snow. 
But look not. Age, so wistful at my mouth. 
As if you longed to pull out ev'ry tooth ! 
Let them, I do beseech you, keep their places I 
Though, if you like, you're free to paint their 

faces. 
My limbs I yield you ; and if you see meet 
To clap your icy shackles on my feet, 
I'll not refuse ; but if you drive out gout, 
Will bless you for 't, and ofter thanks devout. 
So much I give to you with free good-will; 
But, 0, I fear that more you look for still. 
I know, by your stern look and meaning leers, 
You want to clap your fingers on my ears. 
Eight willing, too, you are, as I surmise. 
To cast your misty powder in my eyes. 
But, 0, in mercy spare my little twinklers ! 
And I will always wear your crystal blinkers. 
Then 'bout my ears I'd fain a bargain strike. 
And give my hand upon it, if you like. 
Well then — would you consent their use to 

share f 
'T would serve us both, and be a bargain rare. 
Id have it thus, — When babbling fools intrude. 
Gabbling their noisy nonsense for no good ; 
Or when ill-nature, well brushed up with wit, 
With sneer sarcastic, takes its aim to hit ; 
Or when detraction, meanest sort of prid^e. 
Spies out small faults, and seeks great worth 

to hide ; 
Then make me deaf as ever deaf can be! 
At all such times, my eare I lend to thee- 
But when, in social hours, you see combined 
Genius and wisdom, fruits of heart and mind. 
Good sense, good nature, wit in playful mood, 
And candor, e'en kom iU ^xtractiug good; 



OLD AGE COMING. 



0, then, old friend, I mud have back my hear- 

mg! 
To want it then would be an ill past bearing. 
I'd rather sit alone, in wakeful dreaming, 
Than catch the sound of words without their 

meaning. 
You will not promise? O, you're very glum ! 
Eight hard to manage, you're so cold and 

dumb! 
No matter. — Whole and sound I'll keep my 

heart. 
Not from one crumb on 't will I ever part. 
Its kindly warmth shall ne'er be chilled by all 
The coldest breath that from your lips can fall. 
You needn't vex yourself, old churl, nor fret ! 
My kindly feelings you shall never get. 
And though to take my hearing you rejoice. 
In spite of you, I'll still hear friendship's voice. 
And though you take the rest, it shall not 

grieve me ; 
For gleams of cheerful spirits you must leave 

me. 
But let me whisper in j'our ear, Old Age, 
I'm bound to travel with you but one stage. 



Be 't long or short, you cannot keep me back; 

And when we reach the end on 't, you must 
pack! 

Be 't soon or late, we part forever there ! 

Other companionship I then shall share. 

This blessed change to me you're bound to 
bring. 

You need not think I shall be loath to spring 

From your poor feeble side, you chur. un- 
couth ! 

Into the arms of Everlasting Youth. 

All that your thieving hands have stolen away 

He will, with interest, to me repay. 

Fresh gifts and graces freely he'll bestow, 

More than the heart has wished, or mind can 
know. 

You need not wonder then, nor swell with 
pride. 

That I so kindly welcomed you as guide 

To one who's far your better. Now all 's told. 

Let us set out upon our j ourney cold. 

Witn no vain boasts, no vain regrets tormented, 

"We'll quietly jog on our way, contented. 

ELIZABETH HAMILTON. 



I'M GROWING OLD. 



'Y days pass pleasantly away ; 

My nights are blest with sweetest 
sleep ; 
I feel no symptoms of decay ; 

I have no cause to mourn nor weep ; 
My foes are impotent and shy ; 

My friends are neither false nor cold, 
And yet, of late, I often sigh, 

I'm growing old I 

My growing talk of olden times, 
My growing thirst for early news, 

My growing apathy to rhymes, 
My growing love of easy shoes, 

My growing hate of crowds and noise, 
My growing fear of taking cold. 

All whisper, in the plainest voice, 

I'm growing old I 

I'm growing fonder of my staff; 

I'm growing dimmer in the eyes; 
I'm growing fainter in my laugh ; 

I'm growing deeper in my sighs; 
I'm growing careless of my dress ; 

I'm growing frugal of my gold; 
Tm growing wise ; I'm growing, — ^yes, — 
I'm growing old \ 



I see it in my changing taste; 

I see it in my changing hair; 
I see it in my growing waist; 

I see it in my growing heir; 
A thousand signs proclaim the truth, 

As plain as truth was ever told. 
That, even in my vaunted youtn, 

I'm growing O-id i 

Ah me ! my very laurels breathe 

The tale in my reluctant ears, 
And every boon the Hours bequeath 

But makes me debtor to the Years ! 
E'en Flattery's honeyed words declare 

The secret she would foin withhold. 
And tells in " How young you are ! " 
I'm growing old ! 

Thanks for the years ! — whose rapid fligh 
My sombre Muse too sadly sings ; 

Thanks for the gleams of golden light 
That tint the darkness of their wings; 

The light that beams from out the sky. 
Those heavenly mansions to unfold. 

Where all are blest, and none may sigh 
*' I'm growing old ! '* 

JOHN GODFREY §AX5. 



THE OLD MAN DREAMS. 







FOR one hour of joyful youth ! 

Give back my tvventieth spring ! 
I'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy, 

Than reign a gray-beard king ! 



Off with the wrinkled spoils of age ! 

Away with learning's crown ! 
Tear out life's wisdom -written page, 

And dash its trophies down ! 

One moment let my life-blood stream 
From boyhood's fount of fame ! 

Give me one giddy, reeling dream 
Of life all love and flame ! 

My listening angel heard the prayer, 

And, calmly smiling, said 
" If I but touch thy silvered hair, 

Thy hasty wish hath sped. 

" But is there nothing in thy track 

To bid thee fondly stay. 
While the swift seasons hurry back 

To find the wished-for day ? " 

Ah, truest soul of womanhood ! 
Without thee, what were life ? . 



One bliss I cannot leave behind : 
I'll take — my — precious — wife .* 

The angel took a sapphire pen 

And w^rote in rainbow dew, 
'* The man would be a boy again, 

And be a husband too !" 

" And is there nothing yet unsaid, 

Before the change appears ? 
Remember, all their gifts have fled 

With those dissolving years ! " 

Why, yes ; for memory would recall 

My fond paternal joys ; 
I could not bear to leave them all : 

I'll take — my — girl — and — boys ! 

The smiling angel dropped his pen, — 

*' Why, this will never do; 
The man would be a boy again. 

And be a father too ! " 

And so I laughed, — my laughter woke 
The household with its noise, — 

And wrote my dream when morning broke 
To please the gray-haired boys. 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 



THE OLD MAN'S SONG. 



TO HIS WIFE. 



□ H, don't be sorrowful, darling! 
Now don't be sorrowful, pray! 
For, taking the year together, my dear. 
There isn't more night than day. 

'Tis rainy weather, my darling ; 

Time's waves they heavily run ; 
But, taking the year together, my dear, 

There isn't more cloud than sun. 

We are old folks now, my darling; 

Our heads they are growing gray; 
But, taking the year all round, my dear, 

You will always find the May. 



We've had our May, my darling, 

And our roses, long ago ; 
And the time of the year is coming, my dear. 

For the long dark nights and the snow. 

But God is God, my darling, 

Of night, as well as of day ; 
And we feel and know that we can go 

Wherever He leads the way. 

Ay, God of the night, my darling; 

Of the night of death so grim. 
The gate that from life leads out, good wife. 

Is the gate that leads io Him. 



THE LOST BABIES. 



GOME, my wife, put down the Bible, 
Lay your glasses on your book ; 
Both of us are bent and aged — 
Backward, mother, let us look ! 
Tliis is still the same old homestead 

Where I brouglr: you long ago, 
When the hair was bright with sunshine 

That is now like winter's snow. 
Let us talk about the babies 

As we sit here all alone, 
Such a merry troop of youngsters : 
How we lost them one by one. 

Jack, the first of all the party, 

Came to us one winter's night, — 
Jack you said, should be a parson. 

Long before he saw the light. 
Do you see that great cathedral, 

Filled, the transept and the naye. 
Hear the organ grandly pealing. 

Watch the silken hangings wave ; 
See the priest in robes of office, 

"With the altar at his back — 
Would you think that gifted preacher 

Could be our own little Jack ? 

Then a girl with curly tresses 

Used to climb upon my knee, 
Like a little fairy princess 

Euling at the age of three. 
With the years there came a wedding — 

How your fond heart swelled with pride 
WTien the lord of all the county 

Chose your baby for his bride ! 
Watch that stately carriage coming. 

And the form reclining there- 
Would you think that brilliant lady 

Could be our own little Clare ? 

Then the last, a blue-eyed youngster — 

I can hear him prattling now — 
Such a strong and sturdy fellow. 

With his broad and honest brow. 
How ne used to love his mother ! 

Ah ! I see your trembling lip : 
He is far off on the water, 

Captain of a royal ship. 
See the bronze upon his forehead, 

Hear the yoice of stern command — 
That's the boy who clung so fondly 

To his mother's gentle hand I 

Ah ! my wife, we've lost the babies, 
Ours so long and ours alone ; 



Xow transformed to these great people,- 

Stately men and woman grown. 
Seldom do we even see them; 

Yes, a bitter tear-drop starts, 
And we sit here in the firelight, 

Lonely hearth and lonely hearts. 
All their lives seem full without us ; 

They'll stop long enough one day 
Just to lay us in the churchyard, — 

Then they'll each go on their way. 




8 



OLD AGE. 

" ^^^ TAXD in the light of the ^yindow, 
professor/^ said I. The pro- 
fessor took up the desired posi- 
tion. ^^ You have vrhite hairs/^ 
'^ Had ^em any time these twenty 
said the professor. ^'And the 
crow's foot. — pes anserinus, rather.'^ The 
professor smiled, as I wanted him to, and 
the folds radiated like the ridges of a half- 
opened fan, from the outer corner of the 
eyes to the temples. '' And the calipers,^' 
said I. ^' What are the calipers f^' he 
asked curiously. " ^Vhy, the parenthesis, 
said I. " Parenthesis ? ^' said the pro- 
fessor, " what's that ? '' " Why, look in 
the glass when you are disposed to laugh, 
and see if your mouth isn't framed in a 
couple of crescent lines, — so, my boy ( )." 
" It's all nonsense,'^ said the professor ; 
^' just look at my biceps ;^^ — and he began 
pulling ofP his coat to show his arm. 
"Be careful,'^ said I; "you can't bear 
exposure to the air, at your time of life, 
as you could once.'' " I will box with 
you,'' said the professor, " row with you, 
ride Avith you, SAvim with you, or sit at 
table with you, for fifty dollars a side." 
'^ Pluck survives staruina/^ I answered. 

The profes-or went off, a little out of 
humor. A few weeks afterward he came 
in, looking yer^^ good-natured, and 



OLD AGE. 



brought me a paper, which I have here, 
and from which I shall read you some 
portions, if you don't object. He had 
been thinking the matter over, he said, — 
had read Cicero *' De Senectate^^^ and made 
up his mind to meet old age half 
way. These were some of his reflections 
that he had written down ; so here you 
have 

THE professor's PAPER. 

There is no doubt when old age begins. 
The human body is a furnace which keeps 
in blast three-score years and ten, more or 
less. It burns about three hundred 
pounds of carbon a year (besides 
other fuel), when in fair working 
order, according to a great chemist's 
estimate. When the fire slackens, life 
declines; when it goes out, we are 
dead. 

It has been shown by some noted 
French experimenters, that the amount of 
combustion increases up to about the 
thirtieth year, remains stationary to 
about forty-five, and then diminishes. 
This last is the point where old age 
starts from. The great fact of physical 
life is the perpetual commerce with the 
elements, and the fire is the measure 
of it. 

About this time of life, if food is plenty 
where you live — for that, you know, reg- 
ulates matrimony, — you may be expect- 
ing to find yourself a grandfather some 
fine morning ; a kind of domestic felicity 
that gives one a cool shiver of delight to 
think of, as among the not remotely pos- 
sible events. 

I don't mind much those slipshod lines 
Dr. Johnson wrote to Thrale, telling her 
about life's declining from thirty-jive; the 
furnace is in full blast for ten years longer, 
as I have said. The Romans came very 
near the mark -, their age of enlistment 



9 



reached from seventeen to forty-six 
years. 

What is the use of fighting against the 
seasons, or the tides, or the movements of 
the planetary bodies, or this ebb in the 
wave of life that flows through us? We 
are old fellows from the moment the fire 
begins to go out. Let us always behave 
like gentlemen when we are introduced to 
new acquaintances. 

HERE BEGINS THE ALLEGORY OF OLD 
AGE. 

Old Age, this is Mr. Professor ; Mr. 
Professor, this is Old Age. 

Old Age. — Mr. Professor, I hope to 
see you well. I have known you for some 
time, though I think you did not know 
me. Shall we walk down the street 
together ? 

Professor (drawing back a little). — 
We can talk more quietly, perhaps, in my 
study. Will you tell me how it is 
you seem to be acquainted with every- 
body you are introduced to, though 
he evidently considers you an entire 
stranger ? 

Old Age. — I make it a rule never to 
force myself upon a person's recognition 
until I have known him at least five 
years. 

Professor. — Do you mean to say 
that you have known me so long as 
that? 

Old Age. — I do. I left my card on 
you longer ago than that, but I am afraid 
you never read it; yet I see you have it 
with you. 

Professor. — Where ? 

Old Age. — There, between your eye- 
brows, — three straight lines running up 
and down ; all the probate courts know 
that token, — '^Old Age, his mark." l*nt 
your forefinger on the inner end of one 
eyebrow, and yc)ur middle finger on the 



OLD AGE, 



inner end of the other eyebrow ; now 
separate the fingers, and you will smooth 
out my sign-manual ; that's the way you 
used to look before I left my card on 
you. 

Professor. — What message do people 
generally send back when you first call 
on them ? 

Old Age. — Not at home. Then I 
leave a card and go. Next year I call ; 
get the same answer ; leave another card. 
So for five or six, — sometimes ten years 
or more. At last, if they don't let me in, 
I break in through the front door or the 
windows. 

We talked together in this way some 
time. Then Old Age said again, — 
" Come, let us walk down the street to- 
gether," — and offered me a cane, an eye- 
glass, a tippet, and a pair of over-shoes. 
No, much obliged to you, said I. I don't 
want those things, and I had a little 
rather talk with you here, privately, in 
my study. So I dressed myself up in a 
jaunty way, and walked out alone ; — got 
a fall, caught a cold, was laid. up with a 
lumbago, and had time to think over this 
whole matter. 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 



HOW TO GROW OLD. 

FAR from the storms that are lashing the 
ocean, 
Nearer each day to the pleasant home- 
light; 
Far from the waves that are big with commo- 
tion, 
Under full sail, and the harbor in sight : 
Growing old cheerfully, 
Cheerful and bright. 

Past all the winds that are adverse and chill- 
ing, 
Past all the islands that lured thee to rest. 

Past all the currents that lured thee, unwill- 
"1S» 



Far from thy course to the Land of th6 
Blest : 

Growing old peacefully, 
Peaceful and blest. 

Never a feeling of envy or sorrow 

When the bright faces of children are seen ; 
Never a year from the young wouldst thou 
borrow — 
Thou dost remember what lieth between : 
Growing old willingly, 
Thankful serene. 

Hearts at the sound of thy coming are light% 
ened, 
Ready and willing thy hand to relieve ; 
Many a face at thy kind word has bright- 
ened — 
" It is more blessed to give than receive : " 
Growing old happily, 
Ceasing to grieve. 

Eyes that grow dim to the earth and its glory 
Have a sweet recompense youth cannot 
know; 
Ears that grow dull to the world and its story 
Drink in the songs that from Paradise flow » 
Growing old graciously, — 
Christian-like grow. 



KEEP THE HEART YOUNG. 



% 



|UT now let me tell you this. If the 
time comes when you must lay 
down the fiddle and the bow, be- 
cause your fingers are too stiff, and drop 
ten foot sculls because your arms are too 
weak, and after dallying awhile with eye- 
glasses, come at last to the undisguised 
reality of spectacles ; if the time comes 
when that fire of life we spoke of has 
burned so low, that where its flames 
reverberated, there is only the sombre 
stain of regret, and where its coals glowed, 
only the white ashes that cover the embers 
of memory — don't let your heart grow 
cold, and you may carry cheerfulness and 
love with you into the teens of your 
second century if you can last 
long. 



so 



O. W, HOLMES, 



10 




GRO^y^ING OLD. 





HIRTY is 

the age of 
the gods — 
and the 
first gray 
hair in- 
forms you 
that you 
are at least 
ten or 
twelve 
years older than that. Apollo is never 
middle-aged, but you are. Olympus lies 
several years behind you. You have 
lived for more than half your natural 
term ; and you know the road which lies 
before you is very different from that 
which lies behind. You have yourself 
changed. In the present man of forty- 
two you can barely recognize the boy of 
nineteen that once was. Hope sang on 
the sunny slope of life's hill as you ascend- 
ed ; she is busily singing the old song in 
the ears of a new generation — but you 
have passed out of the reach of her 
voice. You have tried your strength : 
you have learned precisely what you can 
do: you have thrown the hammer so 
often that you know to an inch how far 
you can throw it — at least you are a great 
fool if you do not. The world, too, has 
been looking on and has made up her 
mind about you. She has appraised and 
valued you as an auctioneer appraises and 
values an estate or the furniture of a 
house. " Once you served Prince Florizel 
and wore three pile," but the brave days 
of campaigning are over. What to you 
are canzonets and love-songs? The 
mighty passiou is vapid and second- 



hand. Cupid will never more flutter 
rosily over your head ; at most he will only 
flutter in an uninspired fashion above the 
head of your daughter-in-law. You have 
sailed round the world, seen all its won- 
ders, and come home again, and must 
adorn your dwelling as best you can with 
the rare things you have picked up on the 
way. At life's table you have tasted of 
every dish except the Covered One, and 
of that you will have your share by-and- 
by. The road over which you are fated, 
to march is more than half accomplished, 
and at every onward stage the scenery is 
certain to become more sombre, and in 
due time the twilight will fall. To you, 
on your onward journey, there will be 
little to astonish, little to delight. The 
Interpreter's House is behind where you 
first read the poets ; so is also the House 
Beautiful with the Three Damsels where 
you first learned to love. As you pass 
onward you are attended by your hench- 
man Memory, who may be either the 
cheerfullest or gloomiest of companions. 
You have come up out of the sweet-smel- 
ling valley-flowers ; you are now on the 
broken granite, seamed and wrinkled, 
with dried up water-courses ; and before 
you, striking you full in the face, is the 
broad disk of the solitary setting sun. 

One does not like to be old fogio^ and 
still less perhaps does one like to own to 
being one. You may remember when 
you were the youngest person in every 
company into which you entered ; and 
how it pleased you to think how preco- 
ciously clever you were, and opulent in 
Time. You were introduced to the great 
Mr. Blank — at least twenty years older 



11 



GROWING OLD. 



than yourself — and could not help think- 
ing how much greater you would be than 
Mr. Blank by the time you reached his 
age. But pleasant as it is to be the 
youngest member of every company, that 
pleasure does not last forever. As years 
pass on you do not quite develop into 
the genius you expected, and the new gen- 
eration makes its appearance and pushes 
you from your stool. You make the 
disagreeable discovery that there is a 
younger man of promise in the world 
than even you ; then the one younger 
man becomes a dozen younger men ; then 
younger men come flowing in like waves, 
and before you know where you are, by 
this impertinent younger generation — 
fellows who were barely breeched when 
you won your first fame — you are shoul- 
dered into Old Fogiedom, and your staid 
ways are laughed at, perhaps, by the 
irreverent scoundrels into the bargain. 
There is nothing more wonderful in youth 
than this wealth in Time. It is only a 
Rothschild who can indulge in the amuse- 
ment of tossing a sovereign to a beggar. 
It is only a young man who can dream 
and build castles in the air. What are 
twenty years to a young fellow of twenty ? 
An ample air-built stage for his pomps 
and triumphal processions. What are 
twenty yc irs to a middle-oged man of 
forty-five? The falling of the curtain, 
the covering up of the empty boxes, the 
screwing out of the gas, and the counting 
of the money taken at the doors, with the 
notion, perhaps that the performance was 
rather a poor thing. It is with a feeling 
curiously compounded of pity and envy 
that one listens to young men talking of 
what they are going to do. They will 
light their torches at the sun ! They 
will regenerate the world! They will 
abolish war and hand in the Millennium ! 
What pictures they will paint ! What 



poems they will write ! One knows while 
one listens how it will end. But it is 
nature's way; she is always sending 
on her young generations full of hope. 
The Atlantic roller bursts in harmless 
foam among the shingle and driftwood at 
your feet, but the next, nothing daunted 
by the fate of its predecessor, comes on 
with threatening crest, as if to carry 
everything before it. And so it will 
be for ever and ever. The world 
could not go on else. My experience is 
of use only to myself. I cannot be- 
queath it to my son as I can my cash. 
Every human being must start untram- 
melled and work out the problem for him- 
self. For a couple of thousand years now 
the preacher has been crying out Vaniias 
vanitatum, but no young man takes him 
at his word. The blooming apple must 
grate in the young man's teeth before he 
owns that it is dust and ashes. Young 
people will take nothing on hearsay. I 
remember when a lad of, Todd's Studenfs 
Manual falling into my hands. I perused 
therein a solemn warning against novel- 
reading. Nor did the reverend compiler 
speak without authority. He stated that 
he had read the works of Fielding, 
Smollet, Sir Walter Scott, American 
Cooper, James, and the rest, and he laid 
his hand on his heart and assured his 
young friends that in each of these works, 
even the best of them, were subtle snares 
and gilded baits for the soul. These 
books they were adjured to avoid as they 
would a pestilence, or a raging fire It 
was this alarming passage in the trans- 
atlantic Divine's treatise that first made a 
novel-reader of me. I was not content 
to accept his experience. I must see for 
myself. Every one must begin at the 
beginning, and it is just as well. If a 
new generation were starting with the 
wisdom of its elders, what would be thQ 



12 



GROWING OLD. 



consequence? Would there be any fine 
extravagance ? Would there be any lend- 
ing of money? Would there beany noble 
friendships such as that of Damon and 
Pythias, or of David and Jonathan, or 
even of our own Beaumont and Fletcher, 
who had purse, wardrobe, and genius in 
common ? It is extremely doubtful. Vani- 
tas vanitatum is a bad doctrine to begin 
life with. For the plant Experience to 
be of any worth a man must grow it for 
himself. 

The man of forty-five or thereby is 
compelled to own, if he sits down to think 
about it, that existence is very different 
from what it was twenty years previously. 
His life is more than half spent to begin 
with. He is like one Avho has spent seven 
hundred and fifty pounds of his original 
patrimony of a thousand. Then, from 
his life there has departed that " wild 
freshness of morning^' which Tom 
Moore sang about. In his onward jour- 
ney he is not likely to encounter anything 
absolutely new. He has already conju- 
gated every tense of the verb To Be. He 
has been in love twice or thrice. He has 
been married — only once let us trust. In 
all probability he is the father of a fine 
family of children. He has been ill and 
he has recovered ; he has experienced tri- 
umph and failure ; he has known what it 
is to have money in his purse, and what 
it is to want money in his purse. Some- 
times he has been a debtor, sometimes he 
has been a creditor. He has stood by 
the brink of half a dozen graves, and 
heard the clod falling on the coffin-lid. 
All this he has experienced ; the only new 
thing before him is death, and even to 
that he has at various times approximated. 
Life has lost most of tlie unexpectedness, 
its zest, its novelty, and has become like a 
worn shoe or a thread-bare doublet. To 
him there is no new thing under the sun. 



But then this growing old is a gradual 
process: and zest, sparkle, and novelty 
are not essential to happiness. ' The man 
who has reached five-and-forty has learned 
what a pleasure there is in cnsiomariness 
and use and wont — in having everything 
around him familiar, tried, confidential. 
Life may have become humdrum, but his 
tastes have become humdrum too. Nov- 
elty annoys him, the intrusion of an un- 
familiar object puts him out. A pair of 
newly embroidered slippers would be 
much more ornamental than the well-worn 
articles which lie warming for him before 
the library fire ; but then he cannot get 
his feet into them so easily. He is con- 
tented with his old friends — a new friend 
would break the charm of the old famil- 
iar faces. He loves the hedge rows and 
the fields and the brook and the bridge 
which he sees every day, and he would 
not exchange them for Alps and glaciers. 
By the time a man has reached forty-five 
he lies as comfortably in his habits as the 
silk-worm in its cocoon. On the whole I 
take it that middle age is a happier period 
than youth. In the entire circle of the 
year there are no days so delightful as 
those of a fine October, when the trees are 
bare to the mild heavens, and the red 
leaves bestrew the road, and you can feel 
the breath of winter morning and even- 
ing — no days so calm, so tenderly solemn, 
and with such a reverent meekness in the 
air. The lyrical up-burst of the lark at 
such a time would be incongruous. The 
only sounds suitable to the season are the 
rusty caw of the homeward-sliding rook 
— the creaking of the wain returning 
empty from the farm-yard. There is an 
"unrest which men miscall delio:ht," and 
of that " unrest" youth is for the most 
part composed. From that middle age is 
free. The setting suns of youth are crimson 
and gold; the setting suns of middle age 



13 



GROWING OLD. 



Do take a sober coloring from an eye 
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality. 

^Touth is the slave of beautiful faces, and 
fine eyes, and silver-sweet voices — they 
distract, madden, alarm. To middle age 
they are but the gracefullest statues, the 
loveliest poems. They delight but hurt 
not. They awake no passion, they 
heighten no pulse. And the imaginative 
man of middle age possesses after a fash- 
ion all the passionate turbulence, all the 
keen delights, of his earlier days. They 
are not dead — they are dwelling in the 
antechamber of memory awaiting his call ; 
and when they are called they wear an 
ethereal something which is not their own. 
The Muses are the daughters of Memory : 
youth is the time to love, but middle age 
the period at which the best love-poetry 
is written. And middle age too — the 
early period of it, when a man is master 
of his instruments and knows what he 
can do — is the best season of intellectual 
activity. The playful capering flames of 
a newly-kindled fire is a pretty sight ; 
but not nearly so effective — any house- 
wife will tell you — as when the flames are 
gone and the whole mass of fuel has be- 
come caked into a sober redness that emits 
a steady glow. There is nothing good in 
this world which time does not improve. 
A silver wedding is better than the voice 
of the Epithalamium. And the most 
beautiful face that ever was is made yet 
more beautiful when there is laid upon it 
the reverence of silver hairs. 

There is a certain even-handed justice 
in Time ; and for what he takes away he 
gives us something in return. He robs 
us of elasticity of limb and spirit, and in 
its place he brings tranquility and repose 
— the mild autumnal weather of the soul. 
He takes away Hope, but he gives us 
Memory. And the settled, unfluctuating 
atmosphere of middle age is no bad ex- 



change for the stormful emotions, the pas- 
sionate crises and suspenses, of the earlier 
day. The constitutional melancholy of 
the middle-aged man is a dim back-ground 
on which the pale flowers of life are 
brought out in the tenderest relief. Youth 
is the time for action, middle age for 
thought. In youth we hurriedly crop the 
herbage; in middle age, in a sheltered 
place, we chew the ruminative cud. In 
youth, red-handed, red-ankled, with songs 
and shoutings, we gather in the grapes ; 
in middle age, under our own fig-tree, or 
in quiet gossip with a friend, we drink 
the wine free of all turbid lees. Youth 
is a lyrical poet, middle age a quiet essay- 
ist, fond of recounting experiences and of 
appending a moral to every incident. In 
youth the world is strange and unfamiliar, 
novel and exciting, everything wears the 
face and garb of a stranger ; in middle 
age the world is covered over with rem- 
iniscence as with a garment — it is made 
homely with usage, it is made sacred 
with graves. The middle-aged man can 
go nowhere without treading the mark of 
his own footsteps. And in middle age, 
too — provided the man has been a good 
and ordinarily happy one — along with 
his mental tranquility, there comes a cor- 
responding sweetness of the moral atmos- 
phere. He has seen the good and the evil 
that are in the world, the ups and the 
downs, the almost general desire of the 
men and the women therein to do the 
right thing if they could but see 
how — and he has learned to be un- 
censorious, humane ; to attribute the 
best motives to every action, and to be 
chary of imputing a sweeping and cruel 
blame. He has a quiet smile for the 
vain-glorious boast ; a feeling of respect 
for shabby-genteel virtues ; a pity for the 
thread-bare garments proudly worn, and 
for the napless hat glazed into more than 



14 



GROWING OLD, 



pristine brilliancy from frequent brush- 
ing after rain. He would not be satirical 
for the world. He has no finger of scorn 
to point at anything under the sun. He 
has a hearty " Amen " for every good 
wish, and in the worst cases he leans to a 
verdict of Not Proven. And along with 
this pleasant blandness and charity, a cer- 
tain grave, serious humor, " a smile on 
the lip and a tear in the eye/' is notice- 
able frequently in middle-aged persons — 
a phase of humor peculiar to that period 
of life, as the chrysanthemum to Decem- 
ber. Pity lies at the bottom of it, just as 
pity lies, unsuspected, at the bottom of 
love. Perhaps this special quality of 
humor — with its sadness of • tenderness, 
its mirth with the heart-ache, its gaiety 
growing out of deepest seriousness, like a 
crocus on a child's grave — never ap- 
proaches more closely to perfection than 
in some passages of Mr. Hawthorne's writ- 
ings — who was a middle-aged man from 
earliest boyhood. And although middle- 
aged persons have lost the actual posses- 
sion of youth, yet in virtue of this humor 
they can comprehend it, see all round it, 
enter imaginatively into every sweet and 
bitter of it. They wear the key Memory 
at their girdles, and they can open every 
door in the chamber of youth. And it is 
also in virtue of this peculiar humor that 
— Mr. Dicken's Little Nell to the contrary 
■ — it is only middle-aged persons who can, 
either as poets or artists, create for us a 
child. There is no more beautiful thing 
on earth than an old man's love for his 
granddaughter ; more beautiful even — 
from the absence of all suspicion of direct 
personal bias or interest — than his love 
for his own daughter ; and it is only the 
meditative, sad-hearted, middle-aged man 
who can creep into the heart of a child 
and interpret it, and show forth the new 
nature to us in the subtle cross lights of 



contrast and suggestion. Imaginatively 
thus, the wrinkles of age become the 
dimples of infancy. Wordsworth was not 
a very young man when he held the col- 
loquy with the little maid who insisted, 
in her childish logic, that she was one of 
seven. Mr. Hawthorne was not a young 
man when he painted "Pearl" by the 
side of the brook in the forest ; and he 
was middle-aged and more when he drew 
" Pansie," the most exquisite child that 
lives in English words. And when 
speaking of middle age, of its peculiar 
tranquility and humor, w^hy not tell of its 
peculiar beauty as well ? Men and 
women make their own beauty or their 
own ugliness. Sir Edward Bulwer Lyt- 
ton speaks in one of his novels of a man 
" who was uglier than he had any bus- 
iness to be ; " and if we could but read it, 
every human being carries his life in his 
face, and is good-looking or the reverse 
as that life has been good or evil. On 
our features the fine chisels of thought 
and emotion are eternally at work. Beauty 
is not the monoply of blooming young 
men and of white and pink maids. There 
is a slow-growing beauty which only 
comes to perfection in old age. Grace 
belong to no period of life, and goodness 
improves the longer it exists. I have 
seen sweeter smiles on a lip of seventy 
than I ever saw on a lip of seventeen. 
There is the beauty of youth, and there is 
also the beauty of holiness — a beauty 
much more seldom met ; and more fre- 
quently found in the arm-chair by the 
fire, with grandchildren around its knee, 
than in the ball-room or the promenade. 
Husband and wife who have fought the 
world side by side, who have made com- 
mon stock of joy and sorrow, and aged 
together, are not unfrequently found 
curiously alike in personal appearance 
and in pitch and tone of voice — just as 



15 



GROWING OLD. 



twin pebbles on the beach, exposed to the 
same tidal influences, are each others alter 
ergo. He has gained a feminine some- 
thing which brings his manhood into full 
relief, ^he has gained a masculine some- 
thing which acts as a foil to her woman- 
hood. Beautiful are they in life, these 
pale winter roses, and in death they will 
not be divided. When Death comes, he 
will pluck not one, but both. 

And in any case, to the old man, when 
the world becomes trite, the triteness 
arises not so much from a cessation as 
from a transference of interest. What is 
taken from this world is given to the 
next. The glory is in the east in the 
morning, it is in the west in the afternoon, 
and when it is dark the splendor is irrad- 
iating the realm of the under-world. He 
would only follow. 



ALEXANDER SMITH, 



EVERY YEAR. 

THE spring has less of brightness 
Every year ; 
And the snow a ghastlier whiteness 
Every year ; 
Nor do summer flowers quicken, 
Nor autumn fruitage thicken 
As they once did, for they sicken 
Every year. 

It is growing darker, colder. 

Every year ; 
And the heart and soul grow older 

Every year ; 
I care not now for dancing, 
Or for eyes with passion glancing. 
Love is less and less entrancing 

Every year. 

Of the loves and sorrows blended 

Every year ; 
Of the charms of friendship ended 

Every year ; 
Of the ties that still might bind me 



Until Time to Death resigned mfl^ 
My infirmities remind me 
Every year. 

Ah ! how sad to look before us 

Every year ; 
While the cloud grows darker o'er te? 

Every year ; 
When we see the blossoms faded, 
That to bloom we might have aided 
And immortal garlands braided, 

Every year. 

To the past go more dead faces 

Every year ; 
As the loved leave vacant places 

Every year ; 
Everywhere the sad eyes meet us, 
In the evening's dusk they greet us. 
And to come to them entreat us, 

Every year. 

" You are growing old," they tell us ; 

" Every year ; 
You are more alone," they tell us, 

" Every year ; 
You can win no new affection, 
You have only recollection, 
Peeper sorrow and dejection, 

Every year." 

Yes ! the shores of life are shifting 

Every year ; 
And we are seaward drifting 

Every year ; 
Old pleasures, changing, fret us, 
The living more forget us. 
There are fewer to regret us 

Every year. 

But the truer life draws nigher 

Every year ; 
And its morning star climbs higher 

Every year ; 
Earth's hold on us grows slighter. 
And the heavy burden lighter. 
And the Dawn Immortal brighter 

Every year. albert pik 



16 




GRANNY'S EYES. 



"When those that look out of the windows be darkened." — Eccles. xii. 3. 



T^APT in a world of long ago, 

^ \ Granny sits dreaming half the day 

Life's eventide for her grows grey; 
Even the sunset's lingering glow 

Fades fast away. 

2b 



Dear Granny ! sun, and moon, and stars 
For her have lost their wonted light ; 
The eyes that once were sparkling bright 

Can see no more the golden bars, 
And all is night 1 



17 



GRANNY'S EYES. 



Yet God is good, and witli the cross 
He sends such love her years to bless — 
Such wealth of patient tenderness — 

That day by day dear Granny's loss 
Grows less and less. 

And children's children haunt the place 
Where Granny sits ; and, full of glee, 
lliey clamber wildly on her knee. 

And love to kiss the dear old face 
That seems to see. 

A.nd one wee figure, quaintly vase, 
Will linger there when others play, 
And neyer care to run away : 



" We always call her ' Granny's 
The chikben sav. 



Eyes, 



For, hour, by hour, by Granny's side 
The little maid will sit and read ; 
Or, perhaps, the tottering footsteps lead, 

So that the blind, with such fond guide, 
Can see indeed. 

So Granny dear is glad and bright, 
Fully content on earth to stay. 
Till, in the Father's own good waj^ 

The sun shall shine, and all the night 
Be turned to day. 

G . W E A T H E R L Y , 




WE ARE GROWING OLD. 



WE are growing old — ^liow the thought will 
rise 
ben^-: glance is backward cast 
On some long-remembered spot that lies 

In the silence of the past I 
It may be the shrine of our early yows. 

Or the tomb of early tears ; 
But it seems like a far-off isle to us. 
In the stormy sea of years. 

Oh wide and wild are the wayes that part 

Our steps from its greenness now; 
And we miss the joy of many a heart, 

And the light of many a brow. 
For deep o'er many a stately bark 

Haye the whelming billows rolled, 
That steered with us from that early 
mark — 

O friends, we are growing old, — 

Old in the dimness and the dust 

Of our daily toils and cares ; 
Old in the wrecks of loye and trust, 

"^Miich our burdened memory bears. 
Each form may wear to the passing gaze 

The bloom of life's freshness yet, 
And beams may brighten our later da^'s 

Wliich the morning neyer m.et. 



But oh, the changes we haye seen 

In the far and winding way ; 
Tlie grayes that haye in our path gi-own green, 

And the locks that haye grown gray ! 
The winters still on our o\a\ may spare 

The sable or the gold : 
But Ave saw their snows upon brighter hair — 

And, friends, we are growing old! 

We have gained the world's cold wisdom now, 

We have learned to pause and fear ; 
But where are the living founts whose flow 

Was a joy of heart to hear? 
We have won the wealth of man}- a clime, 

And the lore of many a page : 
But where is the hope that saw in time 

But its boundless heritage ? 

Will it come again when the violet wakes, 

And the woods their youth renew ? 
We have stood in the light of sunny brakes 

^^^len the bloom was deep and blue ; 
And our souls might joy in the spring-time 
then, 

But the joy was faint and cold; 
For it never could give us the youth again 

Of hearts that are growing old. 

FRANCES BROWN. 



18 



A GOOD OLD ACE. 



"% GOOD old age is a beautiful sight, 
and there is nothing earthly that 
^^-^^ is as noble, — in my eyes, at least. 
And so I have often thought. A ship is 
a fine object, when it comes up into a port, 
with all its sails set, and quite safely, from 
a long voyage. Many a thousand miles 
it has come, with the sun for guidance, 
and the sea for its path^ and the winds 
for its speed. AVhat might have been its 
grave, a thousand fathoms deep, has yield- 
ed it a ready w ay ; and winds that might 
have been its wreck have been its service. 
It has come from another meridian than 
ours ; it has come through day and night ; 
it has come by reefs and banks that have 
been avoided, and past rocks that have 
been watched for. Not a plank has 
started, nor one timber in it proved rot- 
t3n. And now it comes like an answer 
to the prayers of many hearts ; a delight to 
the owner, a joy to many a sailor's family, 
and a pleasure to all ashore, that see it. It 
has been steered over the ocean, and been 
piloted through dangers, and now it is safe. 
But still more interesting than this is a 
good life, as it approaches its threescore 
years and ten. It began in the century 
before the present ; it has lasted on 
through storms and sunshine ; and it has 
been guarded against many a rock, on 
which shipwreck of a good conscience 
might have been made. On the course 
it has taken, there has been the influence 
of Providence; and it has been guided 
by Christ, that day-star from on high. 
Yes, old age is even a nobler sight than a 
ship completing a long, long voyage. 

On a summer^s evening, the setting sun 
is grand to look at. In his morning 
beams, the birds awoke and sang, men 
rose for their work, and the world grew 
light. In his mid-day heat, wheat-fields 
grew yellower, and fruits were ripened. 



and a thousand natural purposes were 
answered, which we mortals do not know 
of. And at his setting, all things seem to 
grew harmonious and solemn in his light. 
But what is all this to the sight of a 
good life, in those years that go down 
into the grave? In the early days of it, 
old events had their happening ; with the 
light of it many a house has been bright- 
ened ; and under the good influence of it, 
souls have grown better, some of whom are 
now on high. And theu the closing period 
of such a life, — how almost awful is the 
beauty of it ! From his setting, the sun 
will rise again to-morrow; and he \\\\\ 
shine on men and their work, and or 
children's children and their labors. Bui 
when once finished, even a good life hai 
no renewal in this world. It will begir 
again ; but it will be in a new earth, ano 
under new heavens. Yes, nobler thac 
a ship safely ending a long voyage, and 
sublimer than the setting sun, * d 

age of a just, a kind, a)id useful life. 

FROM MOUNTFORD'S EUTHANASY. 



LONG AGO. 



'HE golden sunset's last fiiint ray 
Has faded out of sight, 
'Midst lingering shadows of the day. 
Comes on the wintry night; 
And sitting by the fire-light's glow, 

I watch the ruddy blaze, 
And muse on all the long ago, 
The happy by-gone days. 

The past events of early youth, 

Fond childhoods grief and glee. 
Shine forth again with vivid truth, 

Painted by Memory. 
I seem to pass through life again. 

To feel its hopes and fears. 
To taste once more the joy and pain 

Of well-nigh seventy years. 

And as I watch the blazing glow, 

I see myself stand there, 
Just as I was long years ago, 
When I was young and fair; 



19 



LONG AGO. 



V\'hen one had whispered of his love. 

And blushes rosy-red 
Told plainly any words above 

The words I left nnsaid. 

And then a happy joyous time 

Gleams forth from out the fire. 
Ana fancy weaves a merry chime 

From a far distant spire — 
A merry chime of we'ddmg-bells 

That floated on the breeze, 
And made sweet music in the dells. 

And whispered to the trees. 

Since then full many and many a 
year 

Has swiftly passed away, 
With many a sorrow, many a tear, 

And many a cloudy day ; 
And yet life's joyous sunny gleams 

Have oft shone golden-bright, 
And summer morning's gladd'ning 
beams 

Have followed each dark night. 



Ah, every scene of long-past days! 
I see you all once more, 



In the fitful fire-light's dancing blaze, 

In the shadows on the floor I 
Oh, memories fond and sweet to me ! 

I hold you very dear. 
Like the notes of some soft sweet inelody 

Heard in a by-gone year ! 

G. w, 











COMPANIONS. 



BEFORE the porch, at close of day, 
A^^len the sun reddens through the 
trees, 
The children love to sport and play ; 
And watching them where'er they stray, 
Grandfather sits in restful ease. 



For only one short year ago — 

The memory of it still is green — 
Their heads were bowed in deepest woe, 
And none but they can ever know 
The bitterness of what had been. 



Then, tired of play, when fades the light, 
Before the porch the children stand ; 

And Tom will tell of schoolboy might, 

Of prowess in some mimic fight. 
While May holds tight the old man's hand. 



Daughter and son had passed away 
Forever from the old man's sight; 
And the young children's summer day, 
With parents dear to cheer the way, 
In one sad hour had changed to night 



Companions very dear, these three, 

Knowing full well each other's worth ; 
Loving each other, it may be, 
With half-unconscious sympathy — 
They have none else to love on earth. 



But now for all the sky grows clear — 

The children, for they've youth and love? 
The old man, for the time is near 
When he the Father's voice will hear 
Bidding hiift meet his bairns above. 

w. 



21 





^ THE ODE OF DECLINE. ^ 



^^^^ 




WITH forces well-nigh spent, 
Uneasy or in pain, 
Or brought to childish weakness once 
again, 
With bodies shrunk and bent. 
We come, if Fate so will, to cold decrepit age. 
The book of Life lies open at its latest page. 

Only fourscore of summers, and fourscore 

Of winters, nothing more, 

And then 'tis done. 

We have spent our fruitful dgj^s beneath the 

sun; 
We come to a cold season and a bare, 



Where little is sweet or fair. 
We, who a few brief years ago, 
Would passionately go 
Across the fields of life to meet the mom, 
We are content, content and not forlorn. 
To lie upon our beds, and watch the Day 
Which kissed the Eastern peaks, grow grad« 
ually grey. 

Great Heaven, that Thou hadst made our live* 

so brief 
And swiftly spent ! 

We toil our little day and are content, 
Though Time, the thief. 



22 



THE ODE OF DECLINE, 



Stands at our side, and smiles his mystic 

smile. 
We joy a little, we grieve a little while ; 
We gain some little glimpse of Thy great 

laws. 
Rolling in thunder through the voids of 

space ; 
We gain to look a moment on Thy face, 
Eternal Source and Cause ! 
And then, tlie night descending as a cloud. 
We walk with aspect bowed, 
And turn to earth and see our Life grow 

dark. 
Was it for this the fiery spark 
Of Thy Eternal Self, sown on the vast 
And infinite abysses of the Past, 
Eevealed itself and made Creation rise 
Before Thy Eternal Mind : 
This little span of life, with purblind eyes 
That grow completely blind ; 
This little force of brain. 
Holding dim thoughts sublime. 
Too weak to withstand the treacheries of 

Time; 
This body bent and bowed in twain, 
Soon racked by growing pain, * 

Which briefer far than is the life of the tree. 
Springs as a flower and fades, and then must 

rot 
And perish and be not. 
Passing from mystery to mystery ? 

It is a pain 

To move through the old fields — even though 

they lie 
Before our eyes, we know that never again, 
Where once our daily feet were used to pass 
Amid the crested grass, 
We any more shall wander till we die ; 
Nor to the old grey church, with the tall 

spire, 
Whose vane the sunsets fire. 
Where once a little child, by kind hands led. 
Would spell the scant memorials of the 

dead^ 
Never again, or once alone, 
When pain and Time are done. 



The soaring thoughts of youth 
Are dead and cold, the victories of Thought 
Are no more prized or sought 
By eyes which draw too near the face of 
Truth. 9 



Whatever fruit or gala 

Fate held in store, 

To tempt the growing soul or brain, 

Allures no more. 

It is as the late Autumn, when the fields 

Are bare of flower or fruit ; 

Nor charm nor jDrofit the swept surface 

yields, 
Sullen and mute ; 
So that a doubting mind might come to 

hold 
The very soul and life were dead and cold. 

But who can peer 

Into another soul, or tell at all 

What hidden energies befall 

The aged lingering here ? 

When all the weaiy brain 

Seems dull, the immeasurable fields of life 

Lie open to the memory, and again 

They know the youthful joys, the hurry and 

the strife, 
And feel, but gentlier now, the ancient pain. 
In the uneasy vigils of the night, 
Before the tardy light; 

Or, lonely days, when no young lives are' by. 
There come such long processions of the 

dead, 
The buried lives and hopes of fjir-off years. 
Spent joys and dried-up tears. 
That round them stands a blessed company, 
Holding high converse, though no word be 

said, 
Till only what is past and gone doth seem 
To live, and all the Present is a dream. 



So may the wintry earth. 

Holding her precious seeds within the ground, 

Pause for the coming birth. 

When like a trumpet note the Spring bhall 
sound ; 

So may the roots which, buried deep 

And safe within her sleep. 

Whisper as 'twere, within, tales of ^\% 
sun — 

Whisper of leaf and flower, of bee and 
bird — 

Till by a sudden glory stirred, 

A mystic influence bids them rise, 

Bursting the nnrrow sheath 

And cerement of death, 

And bloom as lilies again beneath the recov- 
ered skies. 



23 




THE COMING OF THE SNOW. 

HE clouds were copper-dyed all day, 
And struggled in each other's way, 
Until the darkness drifted down 
To the summer-forsaken town. 

Said people, passing in the lane, 
" It will be snow," or " 'Twill be rain ; " 
And school-bairns, laughing in a row, 
Looked though the panes, and wished for snow . 

The swollen clouds let nothing fall, 

But gath'ring gloom that covered all; 

Then came the Wind, and shook his wings. 

And curled the dead leaves into rings : 

He made the shutters move and crack. 

And hurtled round the chimney-stack; 

Then he swept on to shake the trees. 

Until they moaned like winter seas. 

Soon he went whistling o'er the hill, 

And all the trees again stood still ; 

Then, through the dark, the snow came down, 

And muffled all the sleeping town. 

The keen stars looked out through the night, 

And flecked the boughs Avith flakes of light; 

And moving clouds revealed the moon, 

To make on earth a faery noon. 







\/ 



<i^*3^ 



}% 



/sj"r^-\' 



Then Winter Avent unto his throne, 

That with a million diamonds shone; 

A crown of stars was on his head. 

And round him his rich robes were spread. 

At morn the bairns laughed with delight, 

To see the fields and hedges Avhite; 

And folk said, as they hurried past, ^^ 

" Good ^orning— Winter's come at last. 



24 




AN OLD MAN'S LOVE SONG. 



^OME to the faithful arms 
Longing for thee ! 
What are more youthful charms, 
Darling, to me ? 
Dearer the lines of care 

On thy pure brow ; 
Wife with the snow-white hair, 
Come to me now ! 



Now that their wings have growHj 

Far from our nest 
All the young birds have flown — 

Dearest and best ; 
Counting the lonely hours 

We two remain — 
They have their crowns of flowers, 

We loss and pain. 



Kiss, dear, the cheek that lies 

Close, close to thine ; 
Raise, love, thy patient eyes 

Fondly to mine — 
Eyes that have shone so bright 

Forty long years — 
Now is their tender light 

Faded with tears. 



Weep out thy sacred grief 

Here on my heart : 
Sweet was their stay, but brief, 

Soon to depart ; 
Still with the joy of old 

Breathe each loved name — 
They have but left the fold, 

We did the same. 



Sing to me sweet and low, 

With thy dear voice ; 
Here in the fire's warm glow 

Let us rejoice. 
As when thou first didst come, 

Brightening my life — 
Angel of heart and home, 

Fond httle wife ! 



E'en though they all are gone. 
Smile, darling, smile ! 

Think how each treasured one 
Lingered awhile ; 

Look up, dear wife, and say. 
Softly with me, 

"Thev have but flown awav, 



25 



Birds nnist be fr( 



FANNY FORRESTER. 




THE ODE OF CHANGE. 



^ HATE come to the time of the failing of Can I dream he will rise no more, but a 
^F hreath ; ftithomless night 

'**' I have reached the cold threshold of Shall brood o'er Creation for ever, and shut 
death ! out the hght ? 

It is done, this Day of our Life ; but another 
Death ! there is not any death I only infinite shall rise 

change, j)r^y fQ^ Qyer folio \^'ing Day, in the infinite 
Only a pLace of life which is novel and strange. ' skies 

Change! there is naught but change and re- D^^y followinc^ Dav for ever! 

newal of strife, 

Which make uj) the infinite changes we sum Day following day, with the starlit darkness 

up in hfe. between ; 

Life ? what is life, that it ceases with ceasing Or, maybe in a world where Dawn comes, ere 

of breath ? our sunset has been ; 

Death ! what were Life A\ithout change, but Day following day for ever ! 

an infinite death? For ever! though who shall tell in what 

seeming or where ? 

As I lie on my bed, and the sun, like a fur- In what far-off secret space of God's limitless 

naceoffire, air? 

Burns amid the old pines in the west ere the It matters nothing at all what we are or where 

last rays expire, set, 

26 



THE ODE OF CHANGE, 



If a spark of the Infinite Light can shine on 

us yet. 
Life following Life for ever ! 

Life following Life for ever ! fn- what if the 

Sun 
Grew chilled, and the universe cold, and the 

orbits undone, 
And all the great globes should fall back into 

chaos once more; 
They would wake at a glance of the Light, as 

they wakened before. 
There is no Death for ever ! 

Cease ! but how shall we cease while God's 
light shall remain ? 

He that hath lighted Life's flame shall light it 
again ! 

What if he take back for a while, as the sun 
from the sea. 

Some spark of the radiance divine that bade 
all things to be ? 

We rest in Him, we are sunk, we are folded 
in Him, but we are 

As the star w^hich draws near to the sun is ob- 
scured, but is still a star. 

There is only Change for ever ! 

Shall I fear that I shall be changed and no 

more shall be I ? — 
I who know not what 'tis that I am, to live or 

to die ? 
Nay, while God is, I too must be, else too 

weak were His hand, 
The created is part of His essence — how else 

could the Maker stand ? 
There is no Death for ever ! 

Take me, oh infinite Cause, and cleanse me 
of wrong ! 

Take me, raise me to higher life through cen- 
turies long , 

Cleanse me, by pain, if need be, through seons 
of days ! 

Take me and purge me, still I will answer 
with praise — 

There is no Death for ever ! 

Shall I mourn for those who are not ? Nay, 

while love and regret 
Still linger within our souls, they live with us 

yet. 
If we love, then the souls that we love, they 

exist and they are, 



As memory which makes us ourselves, brings 

precious things from far. 
Love lives and is for ever ! 

We are part of an Infinite Scheme, 

All we that are ; 

Man, the high crest and crown of tilings that 

be. 
The fiery-hearted earth, the cold unfathomcd 

sea, 
The central sun, the intermittent star. 
Things great and small. 
We are but parts of the Eternal All ; 
We live not in a barren, baseless dream ; 
No endless, inefiectual chain 
Of chance successions launched in vain : 
But every beat of Time, 
Each sun that shines or fails to shine, 
Each animate life that comes to throb or 

cease, 
Each life of herb or tree 
Which springs aloft and then has ceased 

to be. 
Each change of strife and peace, 
Each soaring thought sublime. 
Each deed of wrong and blood. 
Each impulse towards an unattained good — 
All with a sure, unfaltering, w^orking tend 
To our Inefiable Beatific End. 
Oh, hidden Scheme, perfect Thyself, and 

take 
Our petty lives, and mould them as Thou 

wilt ! 
All things that are, are only for Thy sake, 
And not to obey Thee is our only guilt! 
Perfect Thyself, and be fulfilled, oh great 
Unfathomed Will, who art our Life and 

Fate! 

There is hope, but nothing of fear, 

Naught but a patient mind, 

For him who waits with conscience clear 

And soul resigned 

Whate'er the mystic coming change 

Shall bring of new and strange. 

He looks back once upon the fields of life. 

The good and evil locked in strife, 

The happy and the unhappy days. 

The Right we always love, the oft-triumphant 

Wrong . 
And all his being to a secret song 
Sings with a mighty and unfaltering voice — • 
" I have been ; Thou hast done all things well. 

I am glad; I give thanks ; I rejoice I " 



27 




THE GOLDEN WEDDING. 



Vt only seems like yesterday : 
■^ Yet fifty years have passed away 
Since at the altar, side by side, 
I stood ^-ith you, my happy bride. 

And now our children's children stand, 
Close gathered round, an eager band; 
TMiilst we recall, ^ith smiles and tears, 
The joy and grief of fifty years. 

For we have known the cares of life. 
Sweetheart, since we were man and wife 



Yet have not lored each other less. 
Through fifty years of happiness. 

When clouds have threatened storm and rain, 
The skies have always cleared again. 
And fifty yeai-s have come and passed, 
And brought us sunshine at the last. 

And now that we are old and grey, 
We trust in Him, our guide and stay 
Our constant and unchanging Friend, 
To load us to the journey's end. 

J . R . EASTWOOD. 



2a 




TOGETMEB 



X SAPLING oak, with clinging ivy bound, 
So that in common, on their leaves en- 
twined, 
Tlie warm sun shines, or l)lo\vs the wintry 
wind ; 
Together both grow upward, and are crowned 
With all the glory in perfection founds 
And then together in old age decay, 
Until at last there comes a stormy day, 
That bears them, still twined closely, to the 
ground. 



Two loving hearts, firm-bound in earlj 

youth. 
That pass together down the vale ol 

years. 
Through sunny joys, through cloudy grie^ 

and fears. 
So closely knit in bonds of love and truth, 
That when old age comes on, still hand in 

hand, 
They both pass onward to the Better Land. 

G. WEATHERLY. 



29 



-oc 



■^ • - » 



_ ft 



®) ^AUNT KINDLY.^ 




iSS KINDLY is aunt to 
everybody, and has been, 
for so long a time, that 
none remember to the con- 
trary. The little children love her ; and 
she helped their grandmothers to bridal 
ornaments threescore years ago. Nay, 
this boy's grandfather found that the way 
to college lay through her pocket. Gen- 
erations not her own rise up and call her 
blessed. To this man's father her patient 
toil gave the first start in life. When 
that great fortune was a seed, it was she 
who carried it in her hand. That wide 
river of reputation ran out of the cup 
which her bounty filled. Now she is old, 
very old. The little children, who cling 
about her, with open mouth and great 
round eyes, wonder that anybody should 
ever be so old ; or ask themselves whether 
Aunt Kindly ever had a mother to kiss 
her mouth. To them she is coeval with 
the sun, and, like that, an institution of 
the country. At Christmas, they think 
she is the wife of St. Nicholas himself, 
such an advent is there of blessings from 
her hand. 

Her hands are thin, her voice is feeble, 
her back is bent, and she walks with a 
staff, which is the best limb of the three. 
She wears a cap of antique pattern, yet 
of her own nice make. She has great 
round spectacles, and holds her book 
away oif the other side of the candle when 
she reads. For more than sixty years she 
has been a special providence to the family. 
How she used to go forth, the very charity 
of God, to heal and soothe and bless! 
How industrious are her hands! How 
thoughtful and witty that fertile mind ! 
Her heart has gathered power to love in 
all the eighty-six years of her toilsome 
life. When the birth-angel came to a 



related house, she was there to be the 
mother's mother ; ay, mother also to the 
new-born baby's soul. And when the 
wings of death Happed in the street and 
shook a neighbor's door, she smoothed the 
pillow for the fainting head; she soothed 
and cheered the spirit of the waiting 
man, opening the curtains of heaven, that 
he might look through and see the wel- 
coming face of the dear Infinite Mother ; 
nay, she puts the wings of her own 
strong, experienced piety under him, and 
sought to bear him up. 

Now, these things are passed by. No, 
they are not passed by ; for they are in 
the memory of the dear God, and every 
good deed she has done is treasured in her 
own heart. The bulb shuts up the sum- 
mer in its breast, which in winter will 
come out a fragrant hyacinth. Stratum 
after stratum, her good works are laid up, 
imperishable, in the geology of her char- 
acter. 

It is near noon, now ; and she is alone. 
She has been thoughtful all day, talking 
inwardly to herself. The family notice 
it, but say nothing. In her chamber, she 
takes a little casket from her private 
drawer ; and from thence a book, gilt- 
edged and clasped ; but the clasp is worn, 
the gilding is old, the binding faded by 
long use. Her hands tremble as she 
opens it. First she reads her own name, 
on the fly-leaf; only her Christian name, 
" Agnes," and the date. Sixty-eight years 
ago, this day, that name was written there, 
in a clear, youthful, clerkly hand, with a 
little tremble in it, as if the heart beat 
over quick. It opens of its own accord, 
at the fourteenth chapter of St. John. 
There is a little folded paper there; it 
touches the first verse and the twenty- 
seventh. She sees neither ; she reads both 



30 



AUNT KINDLY, 




out of her 80fal, "Let not your heart be giveth, give I unto you." She opens the 
troubled ; ye believe iu God, believe also paper. There is a little brown dust in it, 
in me." "Peace I leave with you. My the remnant of a flower. She takes the 
peace I give unto you. Not as the world precious relic in her hand, made cold bj 

31 



AUNT KINDLY, 



emotion. She drops a tear on it, and the 
dust is transfigured before her eves : it is 
a red rose of the spring, not quite half 
blown, dewy fresh. She is old no longer. 
She is not Aunt Eandly now; she is sweet 
Agnes, as the maiden of eighteen was, 
eight and sixty years ago, one day in May, 
when all nature was woosome and win- 
ning, and every flower-bell rang in the 
marriage of the year. Her lover had just 
put that red rose of the spring into her 
hand, and the good God put another on 
her cheek, not quite half-blown, dewy 
fresh. The young man's arm is around 
her ; her brown curls fall on h's shoulder ; 
she feels his breath on her face, his cheek 
on hers; their lips join, and like two morn- 
ing dew-drops in that rose, their two loves 
rush into one. 

But the youth must wander away to a 
far land. She bids him take her Bible. 



They will think of each other as they look 
at the Xorth Star. He saw the North 
Star hang over the turrets of many a 
foreign town. His soul went to God ; — 
there is as straio-ht a road thither from 
India as from any other spot. His Bible 
came back to her ; the Divine love in it, 
without the human lover ; the leaf turned 
down at the blessed words of St. John, 
first and twenty-seventh verse of the 
fourteenth chapter. She put the rose there 
to mark the spot ; what marks the thought 
holds now the symbol of their yotithful 
love. To-day, her soul is with him ; her 
maiden soul with his angel-soul; and 
one day the two, like two dew drops, 
will rush into one immortal wedlock, 
and the old age of earth shall become 
eternal youth in the kingdom of 
heaven. 

THEODORE PARKER. 



THE EVERGREEN OF OUR FEELINGS. 



M OPPOSE, as I would every useless 
fear in men, the lamentation that 
our feelings grow old with the lapse 
of years. It is the narrow heart 
alone which does not grow ; the wide one 
becomes larger. Years shrivel the one, 
but they expand the other. Man often 
mistakes concerning the glowing depths 
of his feelings ; forgetting that they may 
be present in all their energy, though in a 
state of repose. In the wear and tear of 
daily life, amid the care of providing sup- 
port, perchance under misdemeanors, in 
eom])aring one child with another, or in 
daily absences, thou mayest not be con- 
scious of the fervent aifection smoldering 
under the ashes of every-day life, which 
would at once blaze forth into a flame, if 



thy child were suffering innocently, or 
condemned to die. Thy love was already 
there, prior to the suffering of thy child 
and thyself. It is the same in wedlock 
and friendship. In the familiarity of daily 
presence, the heart beats and glows silent- 
ly ; but in the hours of meeting and part- 
ing, the beautiful radiance of a long- 
nurtured flame reveals itself. It is on 
such occasions that man always most 
pleases me. I am then reminded of the 
glaciers, which beam forth in rosy-red 
transparency only at the rising and setting 
of the sun, while throughout the day they 
look gray and dark. 

A golden mine of affection, of which 
the smallest glimmer is scarcely visible, 
lies buried in the breast until some magic 



32 



THE EVERGREEN OF OUR FEELINGS. 



word reveals it, and then man discovers 
his ancient treasure. To me, it is a de- 
lightful thought that, during the familiar- 
ity of constant proximity, the heart gathers 
up in silence the nutriment of love, as the 
diamond, even beneath water, imbibes the 
light it emits. Time, which deadens 
hatred, secretly strengthens love; and 
in the hour of threatened separation its 
growth is manifested at once in radiant 
brightness. 

Another reason why man fancies him- 
self chilled by old age, is that he can then 
feel interested only in higher objects than 
those which once excited him. The lover 
of nature, the preacher, the poet, the actor, 
or the musician, may, in declining years, 
find themselves slightly aifected by what 
delighted them in youth; but this need 
produce no fear that time will mar their 
sensibility to nature, art, and love. Thou, 
as well as I, may indeed weep less fre- 
quently than formerly, at the theatre or at 
concerts ; but give us a truly excellent 
piece, and we cannot suppress the emotion 
it excites. Youth is like unbleached wax, 
which melts under feeble sun-beams, while 
that which has been whitened is scarcely 
warmed by them. The mature or aged 
man avoids those tears which youth in- 
vites; because in him they flow too hot, 
and dry too slowly. 

Select a man of my age, and of my 
heart, with my life-long want of highland 
scenery, and conduct him to the valley of 
the Rhine! Bring him to that long, 
attractive, sea-like river, flowing between 
vine-clad hills on either side, as between 
two regions of enchantment, reflecting 
only scenes of pleasure, creating islands 
for the sake of clasping them in its arms; 
let also a reflection of the setting sun glow 
upon its waters ; and surely youth would 
again be mirrored in the old man, and that 
still ocean of infinity, which in the true 

3b 33 



and highest heaven permits us to look 
down. 

Memory, wit, fancy, acuteness, cannot 
grow young again in old age; but the 
heart can. In order to be convinced of 
this, we need only remember how the 
hearts of poets have glowed in the autumn 
and winter seasons of life. He who in old 
age can do without love, never in his 
youth possessed the right sort, over which 
years have no power. During winter, it 
is the withered branches, not the living 
germs, that become encrusted with ice. 
The loving heart will indeed often bash- 
fully conceal a portion of its warmth be- 
hind children and grandchildren ; so that 
last love is perhaps as coy as the first. 
But if an aged eye, full of soul, is up- 
raised, gleaming with memories of its 
spring-time, is there anything in that to 
excite ridicule? Even if it were silently 
moistened, partly through gladness, and 
partly through a feeling of the past, would 
it not be excusable? Micfht not an aged 
hand presume to press a young hand, 
merely to signify thereby, I, too, was once 
in Arcadia, and within me Arcadia still 
remains ? In the better sort of men love 
is an interior sentiment, born in the soul ; 
why should it not continue with the soul 
to the end ? It is a part of the attraction 
of tender and elevated love that its con- 
secrated hours leave in the heart a gentle, 
continuous, distinct influence; just as, 
sometimes, upon a heavenly spring-even- 
ing, fragrance, exhaled from warm blos- 
soms in the surrounding country penetrates 
every street of a city that has no gardens. 

I would exhort men to spare every true 
affection, and not to ridicule the overflow- 
ings of a happy heart with more license 
than they would the effusions of a sorrow- 
ing one. For the youth of the soul is 
everlasting, and eternity is youth. 

Extracts from the Germcn of J. P. richter. 



<c 



^I^ 

THE H^ OLD ^ FOLKS. 



^^^^-^^^V^i^ 




F you would make the aged 
happy, lead them to feel that 
there is still a place for them 
where they can be useful. 
"When you see their powers failing, do not 
notice it. It is enough for them to feel 
it without a reminder. Do not humil- 
iate them by doing things after them. 
Accept their offered services, and do not 
let them see you taking off the dust their 
poor eye-sight has left undisturbed, or 
wiping up the liquid their trembling 
hands have spilled ; rather let the dust 
remain, and the liquid stain the carpet, 
than rob them of their self-respect by 
seeing you cover their deficiencies. You 
may give them the best room in your 
house, you may garnish it with pictures, 
and flowers, you may yield them the best 



children and youth in the way they should 
go ; and will they not feel it keenly, if 
no attempt is made to draw from this rich 
experience ? 

Indulge them as far as possible in their 
old habits. The various forms of society 
in which they were educated may be as 
dear to them as yours are now to you ; 
and can they see them slighted or dis- 
owned without a pang ? If they relisn 
their meals better by turning their tea 
into the saucer, having their butter on 
the same plate with their food, or eating 
with both knife and fork, do not in word 
or deed imply to them that the customs 
of their days are obnoxious in good 
society ; and that they are stepping down 
from respectability as they descend the 
hill-side of life. Always bear in mind 
that the customs of which you are now so 



seat in your church-pew, the easiest chair 

in your parlor, the highest seat of honor tenacious may be equally repugnant to 

at your table; but if you lead or leave, the next generation. 



them to feel that they have passed their 
usefulness, you plant a thorn in their 
bosom that will rankle there while life 
lasts. If they are capable of doing noth- 



In this connection I would say, do not 
notice the pronunciation of the aged. 
They speak as they were taught, and 
yours may be just as uncourtly to the 



ing but preparing your kindlings, or darn- generations following. I was once taught 



ing your stockings, indulge them in those 
things, but never let them feel that it is 
because they can do nothing else ; rather 
that they do this so well. 

Do not ignore their taste and judgment. 
It may be that in their early days, and 
in the circle where they moved, they were 
as much sought and honored as you are 
now ; and until you arrive at that place, 
you can ill imagine your feelings should 
you be considered entirely void of these 
qualities, be regarded as essential to no 
one, and your opinions be unsought, or 
discarded if given. They may have been 
active and successful in the training of 



a lesson on this subject, ' which I shall 
never forget while memory holds its sway. 
I was dining, when a father brought his 
son to take charge of a literary institution. 
He was intelligent, but had not received 
the early advantages which he had labored 
hard to procure for his son ; and his lan- 
guage was quite a contrast to that of the 
cultivated youth. But the attention 
and deference he gave to his father's 
quaint though wise remarks, placed 
him on a higher pinnacle in my 
mind, than he was ever placed by his 
world-wide reputation as a scholar and 
writer. 



I 



34 




CICPPO'S JISSAY OJi OJ.P JLG^. 



is. 



<r\@_ 



3^i 



It*- 



The following extracts are from a discourse " De Senec- 
cute," by Cicero, tlie world-renowned Roman orator, who 
was bom one hundred and six years before Christ. He 
is one among many pleasant proofs that God never leaves 
Himself without a witness in the hearts of men, in any 
age or country. Cicero says : " I have represented these 
reflections as delivered by the venerable Cato ; but in 
delivering his sentiments, I desire to be understood as 
fully declaring my own." 



THOSE who have no internal re- 
sources of happiness will find 
themselves uneasy in every stage 
of human life; but to him who 
is accustomed to derive happiness from 
within himself, no state will appear as a 
real evil into which he is conducted by 
the common and regular course of Nature ; 
and this is peculiarly the case with respect 
to old age. I follow Nature, as the surest 
guide, and resign myself with implicit 
obedience to her sacred ordinances. After 
having wisely distributed peculiar and 
proper enjoyments to all the preceding 
periods of life, it cannot be supposed that 
she would neglect the last, and leave it 
destitute of suitable advantages. After a 
certain point of maturity is attained, marks 
of decay must necessarily appear ; but to 
this unavoidable condition of his present 
being every wise and good man will sub- 
mit with contented and cheerful acquies- 
cence. 

Nothing can be more void of foundation 
than the assertion that old age necessarily 
disqualifies a man for taking part in the 
great affairs of the world. If an old man 
cannot perform in business a part which 
requires the bodily strength and energy 
of more vigorous years, he can act in a 
nobler and more important character. 
Momentous affairs of state are not con- 
ducted by corporeal strength and activ- 
ity ; they require cool deliberation, prudent 
counsel, and authoritative influence ; qual- 



ifications which are strengthened and 
improved by increase of years. Few 
among mankind arrive at old age ; and 
this suggests a reason why the affairs of 
the world are not better conducted ; for 
age brings experience, discretion, and 
judgment, without which no well-formed 
gov^ernment could have been established, 
or can be maintained. Appius Claudius 
was not only old but blind, when he 
remonstrated in the Senate, with so much 
force and spirit, against concluding a 
peace with Pyrrhus. The celebrated 
General Quintus Maximus led our troops 
to battle in his old age, with as much 
spirit as if he had been in the prime and 
vigor of life. It was by his advice and 
eloquence, when he was extremely old, 
that the Cincian law concerning donatives 
was enacted. And it was not merely in 
the conspicuous paths of the world that 
this excellent man was truly great. He 
appeared still greater in the private and 
domestic scenes of life. There was a 
dignity in his deportment, tempered with 
singular politeness and affability; and 
time wrought no alteration in his amiable 
qualities. How pleasing and instructive 
Avas his conversation ! How profound 
his knowledge of antiquity and the laws! 
His memory was so retentive, that there 
was no event of any note, connected with 
our public affairs, w4th which he was not 
well acquainted. I eagerly embraced 
every opportunity to enjoy his society, 
feeling: that after his death I should never 
again meet with so wise and improving a 
companion. 

But it is not necessary to be a hero or a 
statesman, in order to lead an easy and 
agreeable old age. That season of life 
may prove equally serene and pleasant to 



35 



CICERO'S ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 



him who has passed his days in the retired 
paths of learning. It is urged that old 
age impairs the memory. It may have 
that effect on those in whom memory was 
originally infirm, or who have not pre- 
served its native vigor by exercising it 
properly. But the faculties of the mind 
will preserve their power in old age, 
unless they are suffered to become languid 
for want of due cultivation. Caius Gallus 
employed himself to the very last moments 
of his long life in measuring the distances 
of the heavenly orbs, and determining the 
dimensions of this our earth. How often 
has the sun risen on his astronomical cal- 
culations ! How frequently has night 
overtaken him in the same elevated 
studies! With what delight did he 
amuse himself in predicting to us, long 
before they happened, the several lunar 
and solar eclipses ! Other ingenious ap- 
plications of the mind there are, though 
of a lighter nature, which may greatly 
contribute to enliven and amuse the 
decline of life. Thus Noevius, in com- 
posing his poem on the Carthaginian war, 
Plautus, in writing his two last comedies, 
filled up the leisure of their latter days 
with wonderful complacency and satisfac- 
tion. I can affirm the same of our dra- 
matic poet Livius, whom I remember to 
have seen in his old age ; and let me not 
forget Marcus Cethegus, justly styled the 
soul of eloquence, whom I likewise saw 
in his old age, exercising even his orator- 
ical talents with uncommon force and 
^/ivacity. All these old men I saw pur- 
suing their respective studies with the 
utmost ardor and alacrity. Solon, in one 
of his poems, written when he was advan- 
ced in years, glories that he learned some- 
thing every day he lived. Plato occupied 
himself with philosophical studies, till 
they were interrupted by death at eighty- 
one years of age. Isocrates composed his 



famous discourse when he was ifinety-four 
years old, and he lived five years after- 
ward. Sophocles continued to write trag- 
edies when he was extremely old. Gray 
hair proved no obstacle to the philosophic 
pursuits of Pythagoras, Zeno, Cleanthes, 
or the venerable Diogenes. These em- 
inent persons persevered in their studies 
with undiminished earnestness to the last 
moment of their extended lives. Leon- 
tinus Gorgias, who livea to be one hun- 
dred and seven years old, pursued his 
studies with unremitting assiduity to the 
last. When asked if he did not wish to 
rid himself of the burden of such prolong- 
ed years, he replied, *^ I find no reason to 
complain of old age." 

The statement that age impairs our 
strength is not without foundation. But, 
after all, imbecility of body is more fre- 
quently caused by youthful irregularities 
than by the natural and unavoidable con- 
sequences of long life. By temperance 
and exercise, a man may secure to his old 
age no inconsiderable degree of his former 
spirit and activity. The venerable Lucius 
Metellus preserved such a florid old age 
to his last moments, as to have no reason 
to lament the depredations of time. If it 
must be acknowledged that time inevit- 
ably undermines physical strength, it is 
equally true that great bodily vigor is not 
required in the decline of life. A moder- 
ate degree of force is sufficient for all 
rational purposes. I no more regret the 
absence of youthful vigor, than when 
young I lamented because I was not 
endowed with the strength of a bull oi 
an elephant. Old age has, at least, suf- 
ficient strength remaining to train the 
rising generation, and instruct them in 
the duties to which they may hereafter be 
called; and certainly there cannot be a 
more important or a more honoraole, 
occupation. There is satisfaction in com«| 
36 



CICERO'S ESSAY ON OLD AGE, 



municating every kind of useful know- 
ledge ; and it must render a man happy 
to employ the faculties of his mind to so 
noble and beneficial a purpose, how much 
soever time may have impaired his bodily 
powers. Men of good sense, in the even- 
ing of life, are generally fond of associat- 
ing with the younger part of the world, 
and, w^hen they discover amiable qualities 
in them, they find it an alleviation of 
their infirmities to gain their affection 
and esteem ; and well-inclined young men 
think themselves equally happy to be 
guided into the paths of knowledge and 
virtue by the instructions of experienced 
elders. I love to see the fire of youth 
somewhat tempered by the sobriety of 
age, and it is also pleasant to see the grav- 
ity of age enlivened by the vivacty of 
youth. Whoever combines these two 
qualities in his character will never 
exhibit traces of senility in his mind, 
though his body may bear the marks of 
years. 

As for the natural and necessary incon- 
veniences attendant upon length of years, 
we ought to counteract their progress by 
constant and resolute opposition. The 
infirmities of age should be resisted like 
the approaches of disease. To this end 
we should use regular and moderate exer- 
cise, and merely eat and drink as much 
as is necessary to repair our strength, 
without oppressing the organs of diges- 
tion. And the intellectual faculties, as 
well as the physical, should be carefully 
assisted. Mind and body thrive equally 
by suitable exercise of their powers; with 
this difference, however, that bodily exer- 
tion ends in fatigue, whereas the mind is 
never wearied by its activity. 

Another charge against old age is that 
it deprives us of sensual gratifications. 
Happy effect, indeed, to be delivered from 
those snares which allure youth into some 



of the worst vices ! " Reason," said 
Archy tas, " is the noblest gift which God 
or Nature has bestowed on men. Now 
nothing is so great an enemy to that 
divine endowment as the pleasures of 
sense ; for neither temperance, nor any of 
the more exalted virtues, can find a place 
in that breast which is under the domin- 
ion of voluptuous passions. Imagine to 
yourself a man in the actual enjoyment 
of the highest gratifications mere animal 
nature is capable of receiving ; there can 
be no doubt that during his continuance 
in that state it would be utterly impossible 
for him to exert any one power of his 
rational faculties." The inference I draAv 
from this is, that if the principles of 
reason and virtue have not proved suf- 
ficient to inspire us with proper contempt 
for mere sensual pleasures, we have cause 
to feel grateful to old age for at least 
weaning us from appetites it would ill 
become us to gratify ; for voluptuous 
passions are utter enemies to all the 
nobler faculties of the soul ; they hold no 
communion with the manly virtues ; and 
they cast a mist before the eye of reason. 
The little relish which old age leaves us 
for enjoyments merely sensual, instead of 
being a disparagement to that period of 
life, considerably enhances its value. If 
age renders us incapable of taking an 
equal share in the flowing «cups and 
luxurious dishes of wealthy tables, it 
thereby secures us from painful indiges- 
tion, restless nights, and disordered reason. 
But though his years will guard an old 
man from excess, they by no means ex- 
clude him from enjoying convivial grat- 
ifications in a moderate degree. I always 
took singular satisfaction in the anniver- 
saries of those little societies called Con^ 
fraternities. But the gratification I re- 
ceived from their entertainments arose 
much less from the pleasures of the palat^ 



37 



CICERO'S ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 



than from the opportunities they afforded 
for enjoying the company and conyersa- 
tion of friends. I derive so much pleas- 
ure from hours deyoted to cheerful dis- 
course, that I love to prolong my meals, 
not only when the company is composed 
of men of my own years, few of whom 
indeed are now remaining, but also when 
it chiefly consists of young persons. And 
I acknowledge my obligations to old age 
for having increased my passion for the 
pleasures of conversation, while it has 
abated it for those which depend solely 
on the palate ; though I do not find my- 
self disqualified for that species of grat- 
ification, also. 

The advantages of age are inestimable, 
if we consider it as delivering us from the 
tyranny of lust and ambition, from angry 
and contentious passions, from inordinate 
and irrational desires; in a word, as 
teaching us to retire within ourselves, and 
look for happiness in our own souls. If 
to these moral benefits, which naturally 
result from length of days, be added the 
sweet food of the mind, gathered in the 
fields of science, I know of no season of 
life that is passed more agreeably than 
the learned leisure of a virtuous old age. 
Can the luxuries of the table, or the 
amusements of the theatre, supply their 
votaries with enjoyments worthy to be 
compared* with the calm delights of intel- 
lectual employments ? And, in minds 
rightly formed and properly cultivated, 
these exalted delights never fail to improve 
and gather strength with years. 

From the pleasures which attend a 
studious old age, let us turn to those 
derived from rural occupations, of which 
I am a warm admirer. Pleasures of this 
class are perfectly consistent with every 
degree of advanced years, as they approach 
more nearly than any others to those of a 
purely philosophical kind. They are 



derived from observing the nature and 
properties of our earth, which yields ready 
obedience to the cultivator's industry, and 
returns, with interest, whatever he places 
in her charge. But the profit arising 
from this fertility is by no means 
the most desirable circumstance of the 
farmer's labors. I am principally delight- 
ed with observing the powers of Xature, 
and tracing her processes in vegetable 
productions. How wonderful it is that 
each species is endowed with power to 
continue itself; and that minute seeds 
should develop so amazingly into large 
trunks and branches ! The orchard, the 
vegetable garden, and the parterre diver- 
sify the pleasures of farming; not to 
mention the feeding of cattle and the rear- 
ing of bees. Among my friends and 
neighbors in the country are several men 
far advanced in life, who employ them- 
selves with so much activity and industry 
in agricultural business, that nothing 
important is carri-^d on without their 
supervision. And these rural veterans 
do not confine their energies to those sorts 
of crops which are sown and reaped in 
one year. They occupy themselves in 
branches of husoandry from which they 
know they cannot live to derive any 
advantage. If asked why they thus 
expend their labor, they might well reply, 
^' We do it in obedience to the immortal 
gods. By their bountiful providence we 
received these fields from our ancestors, 
and it is their will that we should trans- 
mit them to posterity wdth improvements.'' 
In my opinion there is no happier occupa- 
tion than agriculture ; not only on account 
of its great utility to mankind, but also as 
the source of peculiar pleasures. I might 
expatiate on the beauties of verdant groves 
and meadows, on the charming landscape 
of olive-trees and vineyards ; but to say 
all in one word, there cannot be a mors 



38 



CICERO S ESSAY ON OLD AGE, 



pleasing, or a more profitable scene than 
that of a well-cultivated farm. And 
where else can a man in the last stages of 
life more easily find warm sunshine, or a 
good fire in winter, or the pleasure of 
• cooling shades and refreshing streams in 
summer ? 

It is often argued that old age must 
necessarily be a state of much anx- 
iety and disquietude, on account of the 
near approach of death. That the hour 
of dissolution cannot be far distant from 
an aged man is undoubtedly true. But 
every event that is agreeable to the course 
of nature ought to be regarded as a real 
good ; and surely nothing can be more 
natural than for the old to die. It is 
true that youth also is exposed to dissolu- 
tion ; but it is a dissolution obviously con- 
trary to Nature's intentions, and in oppo- 
sition to her strongest eiforts. Fruit, 
before it is ripe, cannot be separated from 
the stalk without some degree of force ; 
but when it is perfectly mature, it drops 
of itself : so the disunion of the soul and 
body is effected in the young by violence, 
but in the old it takes place by mere ful- 
ness and completion of years. This ripe- 
ness for death I perceive in myself with 
much satisfaction ; and I look forward 
to my dissolution as to a secure haven, 
where I shall at length find a happy 
repose from the fatigues of a long 
voyage. 

With regard to the consequences of our 
final diss61ution, I will venture to say 
that the nearer death approaches, the more 
clearly do I seem to discern its real nature. 
"When I consider the faculties with which 
the human mind is endowed, its amazing 
celerity, its wonderful power in recollect- 
ing past events, and its sagacity in dis- 
cerning the future, together with its num- 
berless discoveries in arts and sciences, I 
feel a conscious conviction that this 



active, comprehensive principle cannot 
possibly be of a mortal nature. And as 
this unceasing activity of tlie soul derives 
its energy from its own intrinsic and es- 
sential powers, witliout receiving it from 
any foreign or external impulse, it neces- 
sarily follows that its activity must con- 
tinue forever. I am induced to embrace 
this opinion, not only as agreeable to the 
best deductions of reason, but also 
in deference to the authority of the 
noblest and most distinguished philoso- 
phers. 

I am well convinced that my dear de- 
parted friends are so far from having 
ceased to live, that the state they now en- 
joy can alone with propriety be called life, 
I feel myself transported with impatience 
to rejoin those whose characters I have 
greatly respected and whose persons I 
have loved. Nor is this earnest desire 
confined alone to those excellent persons 
with whom I have been connected. I 
ardently wish also to visit those celebrated 
worthies of whom I have heard or read 
much. To this glorious assembly I am 
speedily advancing; and I would not be 
turned back on my journey, even on the 
assured condition that my youth should 
be again restored. The sincere truth is, 
if some divinity would confer on me a 
new grant of life, I would reject the offer 
without the least hesitation. I have well- 
nigh finished the race, and have no dispo- 
sition to return to the starting-point. I 
do not mean to imitate those philosophers 
who represent the condition of human 
nature as a subject of just lamentation. 
The satisfactions of this life are many; 
but there comes a time when we have had 
a sufficient measure of its enjoyments, and 
may well dej^art contented with our share 
of the feast. I am far from regretting 
that this life was bestowed on me; and I 
have the satisfaction of thinking that I 



39 



CICERO'S ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 

have employed it in such a manner as not How^s Billy, my namesake? You don't say 

to have lived in vain. In short, I con- }l^'^ §^^\® 

1 • 1 -V- To the war, John, and that YOU have bur ed 

sider this world as a place which JSature ^.^^^ ^..^^.^ 

never intended for my permanent abode ; 

, T 1 1 J "^4- ^ . u -r^^f Poor Katherine ! so she has left you,— ah me 

and I look on my departure Irom it, not i^ ' ^,. ,..^.^. 

-^ ^ 1 1 • • -u I thought she would live to be ntty, or more 
as being driven from my habitation, but 

simply as leaving an inn. 



OLD CHUMS. 

(S it you. Jack ? Old boy, is it really you ? 
I shouldn't have known you but 
that I was told 
You might be expected;— pray, how 
do you do ? 
But what, under heaven, has made you so 
old? 

Your hair! why, you've only a little gray 
fuzz ! 
And your beard's white ! but that can be 
beautifully dyed; 
And your legs aren't but just half as long as 
they was ; 
And then— stars and garters ! your vest is 
so "^dde ! 

Is this your hand? Lord, how I envied you 
that 
In the time of our coUrting,— so soft, and 
so small, 
And now it is callous inside, and so fat,— 
Well, you beat the very old deuce, that is 
all. 

Turn round ! let me look at you ! isn't it odd, 
How strange in a few years a fellow's chum 
grows ! 
Your eye is shrunk up like a bean in a pod. 
And what are these lines branching out 
from your nose ? 



I thought she would live to be fifty, or more, 
What is it you tell me ? She u-as fifty-three ! 
Oh no. Jack ! she wasn't so much by a 

score ! 

Well, there's little Katy, — was that her name, 
John? 
Shell rule your house one of these days 
like a queen. 
That baby ! good Lord \ is she married and 
gone ? 
With a Jack ten years old I and a Katy 
fourteen I 

Then I give it up 1 ^Aliy, you're younger 
than I 
By ten or twelve years, and to think you've 
come back 
A sober old graybeard, just ready to die ! 
I don't understand how it is,— do you, 
Jack? 

I've got all my faculties yet, sound and bright ; 
Shght failure my eyes are beginning to 
hint ; 
But stih, with my spectacles on, and a light 
Twixt them and the page, I can read any 
print. 

My hearing is dull, and my leg is more spare, 

Perhaps, than it was when I beat you at 

bah ; 

Mv breath gives out, too, if I go up a stair, — 

But nothing worth mentioning, nothing at 

ah I • 



My hair is just turning a little, you see, 

And lately I've put on a broader-brinnned 

hat 

1 1, n Than I wore at vour wedding, but you will 

Your back has gone up and your shoulders xnanx\Nuit;^ ^ 

gone down. 



And all the old roses are under the plough ; 
Why, Jack, if we'd happened to meet about 
town, 
I wouldn't have known you from Adam, I 
vow ! 

You've had trouble, have you? I'm sorry; 
but, John, 
All trouble sits lightly at your time of life. 



agree, 
Old fellow, I look all the better for that. 



I'm sometimes a little rheumatic, 'tis true, 
And my nose isn't quite on a straight line, 
they say ; 
For all that, I don't think I've changed much, 
do you ? 
And I don't feel a day older. Jack, not a 

^W.^ ALICE GARY. 



40 



EYERLASTING YOUTH. 



7II> 



«E^^PJ^ 




LD age, in some of its aspects, 
is a most interesting and sol- 
emn mystery, though to the 
outward eye it is merely the 
gradual waning and extinc- 
tion of existence. All the 
faculties fold themselves up 
to a long, last sleep. First, the senses be- 
gin to close, and lock in the soul from the 
outward world. The hearing is generally 
the first to fail, shutting off the mind 
from the tones of affection and of melody. 
The sight fails next ; and the pictures of 
beauty, on the canvas spread round us 
morning and evening, become blurred. 
The doors and windows are shut toward 
the street. The invasion keeps on steadily 
toward the seat of life. The images of 
the memory lose their outline, run to- 
gether, and at last melt away into dark- 
ness. Now and then, by a special effort, 
rents are made in the clouds, and we see 
a vista opening through the green glades 
of other years. But the edges of the 
cloud soon close again. It settles down 
more densely than ever, and all the past 
is blotted out. Then the reason fails, and 
the truths it had elaborated flicker and 
are extinguished. Only the affections 
remain. Happy for us, if these also have 
not become soured or chilled. It is our 
belief, however, that these may be pre- 
served in their primitive freshness and 
glow ; and that in the old age wdiere the 
work of regeneration is consummating, the 
affections are always preserved bright and 
sweet, like roses of Eden, occupying a 
charmed spot in the midst of snows. In 
old age, men generally seem to have 
grown either better or w^orse. The reason 
is, that the internal life is then more re- 
vealed, and its spontaneous workings are 
more fully manifested. The intellectual 
powers are no longer vigilant to control 
the expression of the internal feehngs, 



and so the heart is generally laid open. 
What we call the moroseness and peevish- 
ness of age is none other than the real 
disposition, no longer hedged in, and kept 
in decency, by the intellect, but coming 
forth without disguise. So again, that 
beautiful simplicity and infantile meek- 
ness, sometimes apparent in old age, 
beaming forth, like the dawn of the com- 
ing heaven, through all the relics of nat- 
ural decay, are the spontaneous effusions 
of santified affections. There is, there- 
fore, a good and a bad sense, in which we 
speak of the second childhood. Child- 
hood is the state of spontaneity. In the 
first childhood, before the intellect is 
formed, the heart answers truly to all 
impressions^ from without; as the jEolian 
harp answers to every touch of the breeze. 
In the second childhood, after the intel- 
lect is broken down, the same phenome 
non comes round again ; and in, it you 
read the history of all the intervening 
years. What those years have done for 
the regeneration of the soul will appear, 
now that its inmost state is translucent, no 
longer concealed by the expediences 
learned of intellectual prudence. When 
the second childhood is true and genial, 
the work of regeneration approaches its 
consummation ; and the light of heaven 
is reflected from silver hairs, as if one 
stood nearer to Paradise, and caught reflec- 
tions of the resurrection glories. 

But alas ! is this all that is left of us, 
amid the memorials of natural decay ? 
Senses, memory, reason, all blotted out, 
in succession, and instinctive affection left 
alone to its spontaneous workings, like a 
solitary flower breathing^ its fragrance 
upon snows? And how do we know but 
this^ too, will close up its leaves, and fall 
before the touch of the invader? Then 
the last remnant of the man is no more. 
Or, if otherwise, must so many souls enter 



41 



EVERLASTING YOUTH, 



upon their immortality denuded of eveiy- 
ihing but the heart's inmost and ruling 
love? 

How specious and deceptive are natu- 
ral appearances ! What seemed to the out- 
ward eye the waning of existence, and the 
loss of faculties, is only locking them up 
successively, in order to keep them more 
secure. Old age, rather than death, an- 
swers strictly to the analogies of sleep. 
It is the gradual folding in and closing up 
of all the voluntary powers, after they 
have become worn and tired, that they 
may wake again refreshed and renovated 
for the higher work that awaits them. 
The psychological evidence is pretty full 
and decisive, that old age is sleep, but not 
decay. The reason lives, though its eye 
is temporarily closed ; and some future 
day it will give a more perfect and pliant 
form to the affections. Memory remains, 
though its functions are suspended for a 
while. All its chambers may be exhumed 
hereafter, and their frescoes, like those of 
the buried temples at Meroe, will be found 
preserved in unfading colors. The whole 
record of our life is laid up within us ; and 
only the overlayings of the physical man 
prevent the record from being always vis- 
ible. The years leave their debris suc- 
cessively upon the spiritual nature, till it 
seems buried and lost beneath the layers. 
On the old man's memory every period 
seems to have obliterated a former one ; 
but the life which he has lived can no 
more be lost to him, or destroyed, than 
the rock-strata can be destroyed by being 
buried under layers of sand. In those 
hours when the bondage of the senses is 
less firm, and the life within has freer 
motion ; or, in those hours of self-revela- 
tion, which are sometimes experienced 
under a clearer and more pervading light 
from above, — the past withdraws its veil ; 
and we see, rank beyond rank, as along 
the rows of an expanding amphitheatre, 
the images of successive years, called out 
as by some wand of enchantment. There 



are abundant facts, which go to prove that 
the decline and forgetfulness of years 
are nothing more than the hardening of 
the mere envelopment of the man, shutting 
in the inmost life, which merely waits the 
hour to break away from its bondap;e. 

De Quincey says : " I am assured that 
there is no such thing as forgetting possi- 
ble to the mind. A thousand circum- 
stances may and will interpose a veil be- 
tween our present consciousness and the 
secret inscriptions of the mind ; but alike, 
whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription 
remains forever; just as the stars seem to 
withdraw from the common light of day ; 
whereas, we all know that it is the light 
which is drawn over them, as a veil, 
and that they are waiting to be revealed, 
when the obscuring daylight shall have 
withdrawn." 

The resurrection is the exact inverse of 
natural decay ; and the former is prepar- 
ing ere the latter has ended. The affec- 
tions, being the inmost life, are the nucleus 
of the whole man. They are the creative 
and organific centre, whence are formed 
the reason and the memory, and thence 
their embodiment in the more outward 
form of members and organs. The whole 
interior mechanism is complete in the 
chrysalis, ere the wings, spotted with 
light, are fluttering in the zephyrs of 
morning. St. Paul, who, in this connec- 
tion, is speaking specially of the resur- 
rection of the just, presents three distinct 
points of contrast between the natural 
body and the spiritual. One is weak, the 
other is strong. One is corruptible, the 
other is incorruptible. One is without 
honor, the other is glorious. By saying 
that one is natural, and the other spiritual, 
he certainly implies that one is better 
adapted than the other to do the func- 
tions of spirit, and more perfectly to 
organize and manifest its powers. How 
clearly conceivable then is it that when 
man becomes free of the coverings of mere 
natural decay, he comes into complete 



42 



EVERLASTING YOUTH, 



possession of all that he is, and all that That's our " Member of Congress," we say 
he has ever lived ; that leaf after leaf in 
our whole book of life is opened back- 
ward, and all its words and letters come 
out in more vivid colors ! 

In the other life, therefore, appears the 
wonderful paradox that the oldest people 
are the youngest. To grow in age is to So they chose him right in, — agoodjokeitwas 
come into everlasting youth. To become too ! 

old in years is to put on the freshness of 
perpetual prime. We drop from us the There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker 

debris of the past, we breathe the ether of 



when we chaff; 
There's the "Reverend" What's his name? — 
don't make me laugh ! 

That boy with the grave mathematical look 
Made believe he had written a wonderful book, 
And the Royal Society thought it was true,! 



brain, 



, ,., , , , ,, .,, Thatcouldharnessateam with a logical chain; 

immortality, and our cheeks mantle with ^^j. , , ^ i, i • n ui i 

-^ ' When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled 

fire, 

We called him "The Justice," but now he's 

"The Squire." 



eternal bloom. 



REV. EDMUND H. SEARS. 



THE BOYS. 

VtAS there any old fellow got mixed with 
1[ the boys ? 

If there has, take him out, without mak- 
ing a noise. 
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's 

spite ! 
Old Time is a liar ! We're twenty to-night ! 

We're twenty ! We're twenty ! Who says 

we are more ? 
He's tipsy, — young jackanapes! — show him 

the door ! 
"Gray temples at twenty ? " — Yes ! white, if we 

please ; 
Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's 

nothing can freeze ! 

Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mis- 
take! 

Look close, — you will see not a sign of a flake ! 

We want some new garlands for those we have 
shed, — 

And these are white roses in place of the red. 

We've a trick, we young fellows, you may 

have been told. 
Of talking (in public) as if we were old : 
That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call 

"Judge;"— 
It's a neat little fiction, — of course it's all 

fudge. 

That fellow's the "Speaker," — the one on the 
right; 

"Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to- 
night? 



And there's a nice youngster of excellent 

pith, — 
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him 

Smith, 
But he shouted a song for the brave and the 

free, — 
Just read on his medal, "My country," "of 

thee!" 

You hear that boy laughing? — You think he's 

all fun ; 
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has 

done ; 
The children laugh loud as they troop to his 

call, 
And the poor man that knows him laughs 

loudest of all ! 

Yes, we're boys, — always playing with tongue 

or with pen ; 
And I sometimes have asked. Shall we ever be 

men? 
Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, 

and gay, 
Till the last dear companion drop smiling 

away ? 

Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its 

gray ! 
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May? 
And when we have done with our life-lasting 

toys, 
Dear Father, take care of thy children. The 

Boys. 

oi.iver wendell holmes. 



43 



MY FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY, 



I USED to think, when I, a child, 
Played with the pebbles on the shore, 
Of the clear river, rippling wild. 
That rolled before my father's door, 
How long, how very long 't would be 
Ere I could live out fifty years ; 
To think of it oft checked my glee, 
And filled my childish heart with fears. 

I looked at grandma as she sat. 

Her forehead decked with silvery rime, 
And thought " When I'm as old as that, 

Must I darn stockings all the time? 
Must I sit in an arm-chair so, 

A white frilled cap around my face. 
With dull drab strings, and ne'er a bow, 

And keep things always in their place ? " 

The lines of care, the sigh of pain. 

The " Hush " her lips so oft let fall, 
Made me wish o'er and o'er again, 

I never might grow old at all. 
Yet she was ever cheerful, and 

Would ofttimes join our sports and mirth; 
And many a play by her w^as planned 

Around the winter evening hearth. 

But then she played not by the brook, 

She did not gather pretty flowers. 
She did not sing with merry look, 

Nor make a spring-time of the hours. 
So, when she said, one sunny morn, 

"You will be old, like me, some day," 
I wept like one of hope forlorn, 

And threw my playthings all away. 

Be old ! like grandma, and not roam 

The glen in spring, for violets blue. 
Or bring the bright May blossoms home. 

Or pick the strawberries 'mongthe dew! 
Be old ! and in the summer time 

Take weary naps in mid-day hours. 
And fail the Chandler trees to climb, 

And shake the ripening fruit in showers! 



But two-score years have glided by, 

With summer's heat and winter's cold, 
With sunny hours and clouded sky, 

Till now I'm fifty — now I'm old. 
The sun-burnt locks are silvery now. 

That used to dangle in the wind ; 
And eyes are dim, and feet move slow, 

That left my playmates all behind. 

* * •?(■ * -x- * •» 

But life has pleasures holier still 

Than childhood's play with all its zest, 
Tiiat, as we journey down the hill, 

Make each succeeding year the best. 
Kow stalwart men are at my hearth, 

And " bonny lassies" laughing free. 
That had not lived on this good earth. 

To love, and labor, but for me. 

A.nd shall I pine for childhood's joys. 

For woodland walks and violets blue, 
While round me merry girls and boys 

Are doing what I used to do ? 
My days of toil, my years of care, 

Have never chilled my spirit's flow. 
Or made one flower of life less fair 

'than in the spring-time long ago. 

The paths I trod were sometimes rough, 

And sharp and piercing to my feet; 
Yet they were daisied walks enough 

To make it all seem smooth and sweet. 
Friends that I loved have passed from sight 

Before me to my spirit home ; 
But in the day that knows no night, 

I know they'll greet me when I come. 

Hopes that I cherished, too, were vain ; 

But I have lived to feel and know 
That were life to live o'er again, 

'Twere better that it should be so. 
At every winding of the way 

I've sought for love, and love have given ; 
For love can cheer the darkest day. 

And make the poorest home a heaven. 



Be old ! and have no nutting-bees 

Upon the hillside, rustling brown. 
Or hang ujjon the vine-clad trees. 

And shout the rich ripe clusters down ! 
Be old ! and sit round wintry fires ! 

Be fifty ! have no shding spree ! 
And hush away all wild desires ! 

I thought 't were better not to be. 



Oh, ye who're passing down, like me 

Life's autumn side, be brave and strong 
And teach the lisper at your knee 

That fifty 3-ears is not so long ; 
That if they would be ever young. 

And free from dolorous pain and care, 
The life-harp must be ever strung 

With love of duty everywhere. 



44 



MV FIFTIETH BIRTH DA K 



As violins in foreign lands, 

Broken and shattered o'er and o'er, 
When mended and in skilful hands, 

Make sweeter music than before ; 
So, oft the heart, by sorrow torn. 

Gives forth a loftier, clearer song 
Than that which greeted us at morn. 

When it was new, and brave, and strong. 

Father, I thank thee for them all, 

Tiiese fifty years, which now are passed ; 
Oh ! guide me, guard me, till the fall 

Of death my form shall hide at last. 
Let me in love and kindness still 

Live on, and ne'er grow hard and cold; 
Bend me and break me to thy will, 

Bat may my spirit ne'er grow old ! 

FRANCES D. GAGE. 



OLD FOLKS AT HOME. 

'ORE pleasant seem their own surround- 
ings, 
Though quaint and old, 
Than newer homes, with their aboundings 

Of marble, silk, and gold. 
For 't is the heart inspires home-feelings, 

In hut or hall, 
Where memory, with its fond revealings, 
Sheds a tender light o'er all. 

They love the wonted call to meeting. 

By their old bell ; 
They love the old familiar greeting 

From friends who know them well. 
Their homesick hearts are always yearning, 

When they're away ; 
A.nd ever is their memory turning 

To scenes where they used to stay. 

L Y D I A. M . CHILD. 



THE SUNSET HOUR OF LIFE. 

THE stream is calmest when it nears the 
tide, 
And flowers are sweetest at the even- 
tide. 
And birds most musical at close of day. 
And saints divinest when they pass away. 

Morning is holy, but a holier charm 

Lies folded close in evening's robes of balm, 



And weary man must ever love her best, 
For morning calls to toil, but night to rest. 

She comes from Heaven, and on her wings 

doth bear 
A holy fragrance, like the breath of prayer; 
Footsteps of angels follow in her trace, 
To shut the weary eyes of day in peace. 

All things are hushed before her as she throws 
O'er earth and sky her mantle of repose: 
There is a calmer beauty and a power 
That'morning knows not, in the evening 
hour. 

Until the evening we must weep and toil — 
Plow life's stern furrow, dig the weedy soil — 
Tread with sad feet our rough and thorny 

way, 
And bear the heat and burden of the day. 

Oh ! when our sun is setting may we glide. 
Like summer evening down the golden tide; 
And leave behind us, as we pass away, 
Sweet, starry twilight round our sleeping clay. 



A 



A GOOD OLD AGE. 

GOOD old man is the best antiquity ; 
one whom time hath been thus long 
a working, and, like winter fruit, 
ripened when others are shaken down. 
He looks over his former life as a danofer 
well past, and would not hazard himself 
to begin again. The next door of death 
saps him not, but he expects it calmly, as 
his turn in nature. All men look on 
him as a common father, and on old age, 
for his sake, as a reverent thing. He 
practises his experience on youth, without 
harshness or reproof, and his council is 
good company. You must pardon him 
if he likes his own times better than 
these, because tliose things are follies to 
him now, that wore wisdom then ; yet he 
makes us of that opinion, too, when we 
see him, and conjecture those times by so 
good a ixdic. 



BISHOP EARLE, 



45 



THE PLEASURE VOYAGE. 



WISH I could as merry be 

As when I set out this world to see; 
Like a boat filled with good companie, 

On some gay voyage sent. 
There Youth spread forth the broad, white 

sail, 
Sure of fair weather and full gale. 
Confiding life would never fail, 

Nor time be ever spent. 

And Fancy whistled for the wind, ^ 
And if ever Memory looked behind, 
'Twas but some friendly sight to find. 

And gladsome wave her hand. 
And Hope kept whispering in Youth's ear. 
To spread more sail and never fear, 
For the same sky would still be clear 

Until they reached the land. 

Health, too, and Strength, tugged at the oar. 
Mirth mocked the passing billow's roar, 
And Joy, with goblet running o'er. 

Drank draughts of deep delight; 
And Judgment at the helm they set^ 
But Judgment was a child as yet, 
And lack-a-day ! was all unfit 

To guide the boat aright. 

Bubbles did half her thoughts employ; 
Hope she believed ; she played with Joy, 
And Fancy bribed her with a toy 

To steer which way he choose ; 
But still they were a merry crew. 
And laughed at dangers as untrue, 
Till the dim sky tempestuous grew. 

And sobbing south winds rose. 

Then Prudence told them all she feared, 
And Youth awhile his messmates cheered, 
Until at length he disappeared, 

Though none knew how he went. 
Joy hung his head, and Mirth grew dull. 
Health faltered. Strength refused to pull, 
And Memory, with her soft eyes full. 

Backward her glance still bent — 

To where upon the distant sea, 
Bursting the storm's dark canopy, 
Light from the sun none now could see. 

Still touched the whirling wave. 
And though Hope, gazing from the prow. 
Turns oft — she sees the shore — to vow, 
Judgment, grown older now, I trow. 

Is silent, stern, and grave. 



And though she steers with better skill. 
And makes her fellows do her will. 
Fear says, the storm is rising still. 

And day is almost spent. 
Oh ! that I could as merry be 
As when I set out this world to see ; 
Like a boat filled with good companie. 

On some gay voyage bent. 

J. p. R. j\m%S 




BEAUTY OF OLD AGE. 



HE scathed and leafless tree may s^ixi 

Old age's mournful sign. 
Yet on its bark may sunshine gleam. 
And moonlight softly shine. 



Thus on the cheek of age shall rest 

The light of days gone by, 
Calm as the glories of the West, 

When night is drawing nigh. 

As round the scathed trunk fondly clings 

The ivy green and strong, 
Repaying, by the grace it brings, 

The succor granted long, 

So round benevolent old age 

May objects yet survive, 
Whose greenness can the heart engage. 

And keep the soul alive. 

BERNARD BARTON, 



BE KIND UNTO THE OLD. 



p^E kind unto the old, my friend ; 

They're worn with this world's strife. 
Though bravely once perchance they fought 
The stern, fierce battle of life. 

They taught our youthful feet to climb 

Upwards life's rugged steep ; 
Then let us lead them gently down. 
To where the weary sleep^ 



46 



<s TPP poAjiy ppAp A cpowji Of Gj-ojiy. » 




^HILE we call old age the Winter 
of Life, we must beware lest 
we derogate from the bounty 
of our Maker, and disparage those of our 
blessings which he accounts precious, 
among which old age is none of the 
meanest. 

Had he not put that value upon it, 
would he have honored it with his own 
style, calling himself the "Ancient of 
Days " ? Would he have set out this 
mercy as a reward of obedience to himself, 
"I would fulfil the number of thy days?'' 
and of obedience to our parents, " To live 
long in the land ?'' Would he have prom- 
ised it as a marvelous savor to restored 
Jerusalem, now become a city of Truth, 
that "there shall yet old men and old 
women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, 
and every man with his staff in his hand 
for every age ? " Would he else have de- 
nounced it as a judgment to over-indul- 
gent Eli, " There shall not be an old man 
in thy house forever ? " Far be it from 
us to despise that which God doth 
honor, and to turn his blessing into a 
curse. 

Yea, the same God who knows best the 
price of his own favors, as he makes no 
small estimation of age himself, so he hath 
thought fit to call for a high respect to be 
given to it, out of a holy awe to himself: 
"Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, 
and honor the face of the old man, and 
fear thy God. I am the Lord." Hence 
it is that he hath pleased to put together 
the " ancient " and the "honorable," and 
has told us that a hoary head is a crown 
of glory, if it be found in the way of 



J(s)f''^^ 



righteousness; and, lastly, makes it 
an argument of the deplored estate of 
Jerusalem that "they favored not t-he 
elders." 

JOSEPH HALL. 



APPROACH OF WINTER. 



ATURE now calls to 
supper, to re- 
fresh 
The Spirits of the 
flesh; 
The toiling plough- 
man drives his 
thirsty teams, 
To taste the slip- 
p'ry streams : 
The drolling swine- 
herd knocks 
away, and 
feasts 
His hungry whin- 
ing guests: 
The boxbill ouzle, 
and the dappled 
thrush, 
Like hungry rivals 
meet at their 
beloved bush. 



And now the cold autumnal dews are seen 

To cobweb every green ? 
And by the low-shorn rowans doth appear 

The fast-declining year : 
The sapless branches doff, their summer suits 

And wain their winter fruits ; 
And stormy blasts have forced the (juaking 
trees 

To wrap their trembling limbs in suits of 
mossy frieze. 

Our wasted taper now hath brought her light 
To tlie next-door to Night; 




47 



APPROACH OF WINTER. 



Her sprightless flame, grown with great snuff, 
doth turn 

Sad as her neighb'ring urn : 
Her slender inch, that yet unspent remains, 

Lights but to further pains, 
And in a silent language bids her guest 

Prepare his weary limbs to take eternal rest. 

Now careful Age hath pitched her painful 
plough 

<Jj)on the farrowed brow ; 
And snowy blasts of discontented care 

Have blanched the falling hair ; 
Suspicious envy mixed with jealous spite 

Disturbs his weary night : 
He threatens Youth with Age ; and now, alas ! 

He owns not what he is, but vaunts the 
Man he was. 




LIFE ENDEARED BY ACE. 



GE, that lessens 
the enjoyment of 
life, increases our 
desire of living. 
Those dangers 
which, in the 
vigor of youth, 
we had learned to 
despise, assume new terrors as we grow 
old. Our caution increasing as our years 
increase, fear becomes at last the prevail- 
ing passion of the mind ; and the small 
remainder of life is taken up in useless 
efforts to keep off our end, or provide for 
a continued existence. 

Strange contradiction in our nature, to 
which even the wise are liable ! If I 
should judge of that part of life which lies 
before me, by that which I have already 
seen, the prospect is hideous. Experience 
tells me that my past enjoyments have 
brought no real felicity, and sensation 
assures me tiiat those I have felt are 



stronger than those which are yet to come. 
Yet experience and sensation in vain per- 
suade ; hope, more powerful than either, 
dresses out the distant prospect in fancied 
beauty ; some happiness, in long perspec- 
tive, still beckons me to pursue, and, like 
a losing gamester, every new disappoint- 
ment increases my ardor to continue the 
game. 

AATience, my friend, this increased love 
of life, which grows upon us with our 
years ? whence comes it, that we thus make 
greater efforts to preserve our existence at 
a period when it becomes scarcely worth 
the keeping ? Is it that nature, attentive 
to the preservation of mankind, increases 
our wishes to live, while she lessens our 
enjoyments ; and, as she robs the senses 
of every pleasure, equips imagination in 
the spoil ? Life would be insupportable 
to an old man who, loaded with infirmi- 
ties, feared death no more than when in 
the vigor of manhood ; the numberless 
calamities of decaying nature, and the 
consciousness of surviving every pleasure, 
would at once induce him, with his own 
hand to terminate the scene of misery ; 
but happily the contempt of death forsakes 
him at a time when it could be only pre- 
judicial, and life acquires an imaginary 
value in proportion as its real value is no 
more. 

Our attachment to every object around 
us increases, in general, from the length 
of our acquaintance with it. ^' I would 
not choose,^' says a French philosopher, 
^' to see an old post pulled up with which I 
had been long acquainted.'^ A mind long 
habituated to a certain set of objects insen- 
sibly becomes fond of seeing them ; visits 
them from habit, and parts from them ^vith 
reluctance. Hence proceeds the avarice 
of the old in every kind of possession ; 
they love the world and all that it pro- 
duces; they love life and all its ad- 



48 




A DANCJNG LESSON. 



LIFE ENDEARED BY AGE. 



vantages, not because it gives them 
pleasure, but because they have known 
it long. 

Chinvang, the Chaste, ascending the 
throne of China, commanded that all who 
were unjustly detained in prison during 
the preceding reigns should be set free. 
Among the number who came to thank 
their deliverer on this occasion, there ap- 
peared a majestic old man, who, falling at 
the emperor's feet, addressed him as fol- 
lows : " Great father of China, behold a 
wretch, now eighty-five years old, who 
was shut up in a dungeon at the age of 
twenty-two. I was imprisoned, though a 
stranger to crime, or without being even 
confronted by my accusers. I have now 
lived in solitude and in darkness for more 
than fifty years, and am grown familiar 
with distress. As yet, dazzled wdth the 
splendor of that sun to which you have 
restored me, I have been wandering the 
streets to find some friend that would 
assist, or relieve, or remember me ; but 
my friends, my family, and relations are 
all dead, and I am forgotten. Permit 
me, then, O Chinvang, to wear out the 
wretched remains of life in my former 
prison; the walls of my dungeon are 
to me more pleasing than the most 
splendid palace ; I have not long to 
live, and shall be unhappy except I 
spend the rest of my days where my 
youth was passed — in that prison from 
which you were pleased to release 



me. 

The old man's passion for confinement 
is similar to that we all have for life. We 
are habituated to the prison, we look 
round with discontent, are displeased with 
the abode, and yet the length of our cap- 
tivity only increases our fondness for the 
cell. The trees we have planted, the 
houses we have built, or the posterity we 
have begotten, all serve to bind us closer 

4>^ 49 



to earth, and embitter our parting. Life 
sues the young like a new acquaintance ; 
the companion, as yet unexhausted; is at 
once instructive and amazing ; its com- 
pany pleases, yet for all this it is but little 
regarded. To us, who are declined in 
years, life appears like an old friend ; its 
jests have been anticipated in former con- 
versation ; it has no new story to make us 
smile, no new improvement with which 
to surprise, yet still we love it; destitute 
of every enjoyment, still we love it; 
husband the wasting treasure with in- 
creased frugality, and feel all the 
poignancy of anguish in the fatal sepa- 
ration. 

Sir Philip Mordaunt was young, beau^ 
tiful, sincere, brave — an Englishman. 
He had a complete fortune of his own, 
and the love of the king, his master, which 
was equivalent to riches. Life opened all 
her treasures before him, and promised a 
long succession of future happiness. He 
came, tasted of the entertainment, but was 
disgusted even in the beginning. He pro- 
fessed an aversion to living, was tired of 
walking round the same circle ; had tried 
every enjoyment, and found them all 
grow weaker at every repetition. " If life 
be in youth so displeasing," cried he to 
himself, " what will it appear when age 
comes on ? if it be at present indiffer- 
ent, surely it will then be execrable." 
This thought embittered every reflection ; 
till at last, with all the serenity of per- 
verted reason, he ended the debate with a 
pistol ! Had this self-deluded man been 
apprized that existence grows more desir- 
able to us the longer we exist, he would 
then have faced old age without shrink- 
ing; he would have boldly dared to live, 
and served that society by his future 
assiduity which he basely injured by his 
desertion. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 




THE CONSOLATIONS OF AGE. 

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF ZSCHOKKE'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY^ 



iTvfnt^^gwg) 




[ROM all I have narrated con- 
cerning my good and evil days, 
some may infer that I have 
been on the whole a favorite 
of fortune ; that I may very 
well be philosophic, and main- 
tain a rosy good-humor, since, 
with the exception of a few 
self-torments of the fancy, I have seldom 
or never experienced a misfortune. But 
indeed I have met with what men usually 
style great misfortunes, or evils, though 
I never so named them. Like every mor- 
tal, I have had my share of what is called 
human misery. The weight of a sudden 
load has sometimes, for a moment, stag- 
gered me and pressed me down, as is the 
case with others. But, with renewed 
buoyancy of spirit, I have soon risen 
again, and borne the burden allotted to 
me, without discontent. Nay, more than 
this, though some may shake their heads 
incredulously, it is a fact that worldly suf- 
fering has often not been disagreeable to 
me. It has weaned me from placing my 
trust in transitory things. It has shown 
me the degree of strength and self-reli- 
ance I could retain, even at that period of 
life when the passions reign. I am fully 
convinced that there is no evil in the 
world but sin. Nothing but conscious- 
ness of guilt spins a dark thread, which 
reaches through the web of all our days, 
even unto the grave. God is not the 
author of calamity, but only man, by his 
weakness, his over-estimate of pompous 
vanities, and the selfish nurture of his 
appetites. He weeps like a child because 
he cannot have his own way, and even at 
seventy years of age is not yet a man. 
He bewails himself, because God does not 
mind him. Yet every outward misfor- 
tune is in truth as worthy a gift of God 
as outward success. 



In common with others, I have met 
with ingratitude from many ; but it did 
not disquiet me; because what I had 
done for them was not done for thanks. 
Friends have deceived me, but it did not 
make me angry with them; for I saw 
that I had only deceived myself with 
regard to them. I have endured misap- 
prehension and persecution with compo- 
sure, being aware of the unavoidable 
diversity of opinions, and of the passions 
thereby excited. I have borne the crosses 
of poverty without a murmur ; for expe- 
rience had taught me that outward pov- 
erty often brings inward wealth. I have 
lost a moderate property, which I had 
acquired by toil, but such losses did not 
imbitter me for a single day ; they only 
taught me to work and spare. I have 
been the happy father of happy children. 
Twelve sons and one daughter I have 
counted ; and I have had to sit, with a 
bleeding heart, at the death-bed of four 
of those sons. As they drew their last 
breath, I felt that divine sorrow which 
transforms the inner man. My spirit 
rested on the Father of the universe, and 
it was well with me. My dead ones were 
not parted from me. Those who remained 
behind drew the more closely to one 
another, while eagerly looking toward 
those who had gone before them to other 
mansions of the Great Father. It was 
our custom to think of the deceased as 
still living in the midst of us. We were 
wont to talk about their little adventures, 
their amusing sallies, and the noble traitf- 
of their characters. Everything notewor- 
thy concerning thcm^ as well as what re- 
lated to the living members of the family, 
was recorded by the children in a chroni- 
cle they kept in the form of a newspaper, 
and was thus preserved from oblivion. 
Death is something festal, great, like all 



60 



THE CONSOLATIONS OF AGE. 



the manifestations of God here below. 
The death of my children hallowed me ; 
it lifted me more and more out of the 
shows of earth, into the divine. It puri- 
fied my thoughts and feelings. I wept, 
as a child of the dust niusf do; but 
in spirit I was calm and cheerful, be- 
cause I knew to whom I and mine 
belonged. 

At the beginning of old age, I could 
indeed call myself a happy man. On my 
seventieth birthday, I felt as if I were 
standing on a mountain height, at whose 
foot the ocean of eternity was audibly 
rushing ; while behind me, life, with its 
deserts and flower-gardens, its sunny 
days and its stormy days, spread out 
green, wild, and beautiful. Formerly, 
when I read or heard of the joylessness 
of age, I was filled with sadness ; but I 
now wondered that it presented so much 
that was agreeable. The more the world 
diminished and grew dark, the less 
I felt the loss of it; for the dawn of 
the next world grew ever clearer and 
clearer. 

Thus rejoicing in God, and with him, I 
advance into the winter of life, beyond 
which no spring awaits me on this planet. 
The twilight of my existence on earth is 
shining round me; but the world floats 
therein in a rosy light, more beautiful 
than the dawn of life. Others may look 
back with homesickness to the lost para- 
dise of childhood. That paradise was 
never mine. I wandered about, an or- 
phan, unloved, and forsaken of all but 
God. I thank him for this allotment; for 
it taught me to build my paradise within. 
The solemn evening is at hand, and it is 
welcome. I repent not that I have lived. 
Others, in their autumn, can survey and 
count up their collected harvests. This I 
cannot. I have scattered seed, but whither 
the wind has carried it I know not. The 
good-will alone was mine. God's hand 
decided concerning the success of my 
labor. Many an unproductive seed I have 



sown ; but I do not, on that account, 
complain either of myself or Heaven. 
Fortune has lavished on me no golden 
treasurers; but contented with what in- 
dustr}' has acquired, and my economy- 
has preserved, I enjoy that noble inde- 
pendence at which I have always aimed; 
and out of the little I possess I have been 
sometimes able to afford assistance to 
others who were less fortunate. 



I'M SIXTY TO-DAY. 

IX the far away past, Avhen ^-ith me life was 
new, 
The dim, distant fLiture arose to my 
view, 
And the years seemed like mile-stones 

arranged on my way, 
But I've passed fifty-nine and reached sixty 
to-day. 

Looking forward, the youth scarce the path 

can discern. 
But the eye glancing back sees each crook 

and each turn ; 
And now I see oft where my steps went 

astray. 
But I would not retrace them though sixty 

to-day. 

Though fortune her favors to me seldom 

sends, 
I have wealth without stint in the love of my 

friends ; 
^^^lile my locks are yet brown with scarce 

one thread of gray, 
And my step is elastic, t^'ough sixty to-day. 

The past of my life often seems like a 

dream, 
As I've mourned over lo"i ed ones that crossed 

the dark stream. 
But the Comforter whispers, they're not far 

away, 
I soon shall rejoin them ; I'm sixty to-day. 

The morning of life brought its sunshine and 

flowers, 
Tlie midday its labors and oft-needed showers, 



51 



PM SIXTY TO-DA F. 



But high noon is passed, and I watch down 

the way, 
Knowing soon 'twill be sunset; I'm sixty 

to-day. 

Yet I'll try while the day lasts to make others 

glad, 
in help those in trouble and cheer them 

w^hen sad, 
m weep with the mourner and laugh with 

the gay, 
And I'll keep my heart young though I'm 

sixty to-day. 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 

THEEESCOKE and ten! How the tide 
rolls on, 
Nearing the limitless sea ; 
Bearing the voyager over life's flood 
To boundless eternity. 

On, through the childhood's sunny 

hours. 
On, through youth with its golden 

flowers, 
On, through manhood's ripened 

powers, 
Till age appears, 
With its crown of years, 
And the time-worn mariner, sighing for rest. 
Anchors at last in the port of the blest. 

'Threescore and ten ! How the rolling years 

Are checkered with sunshine and shade I 
The calm chased away by the pitiless storm, 
Earth's joy into sorrow must fade. 
Spring with its bloom and perfume sped. 
Fruit-laden summer quickly fled. 
Autumn come with weary tread. 
Bent with the load. 
Of treasured food. 
And then stern winter, with frosty breath, 
Throws over the fields the pall of death. 

'Threescore and ten ! And if we shall reach 

The bound to life that here is set, 
How few of the comrades of early years 
Around us will linger yet ! 

Father and mother, their journey is o'er; 
Brothers and sisters, we greet them no 

more ; 
Our loved ones stand thronging 
The father shore. 
They beckon us ou, 



They point to the crown, 
And with longing hearts they wait, 
To lead us through the pearly gate. 
Threescore and ten ! and the snows of years 

Are resting upon that brow ; 
But, as backward we glance o'er the way we 
have trod. 
Before God our Father we bow. 
And joyous we bring Him our song ol 

praise. 
His mercies have cheered us through all 

our days. 
And w^e fervently pray that life's setting 
rays 
Through love divine 
May cloudless shine — 
Melting away in purer light 
That illumines the land which knows no 
night. 

Threescore and ten ! Stand firm in thy lot, 

Faithful and true to the end ; 
Bending thine ear to catch every word 
Of the message the Master doth send; 
Wakeful thine eye, for far spent is thp 

night; 
Burnished thine armor, thou soldier of 

light; 
Ready to march, for the day-star is bright; 

Bold in the fight 
For truth and right ! 
Thou a conqueror shalt stand 
With the exulting blood-bought band. 

Threescore and ten ! And what shall wa add 

To measure the earthly strife ? 
How many sands are left in the glass. 
Counting the years of life ? 
One by one they silently fall, 
One by one till have fallen all. 
One by one till thy God shall call : 
" Thy race is run. 
Servant, well done ! 
Faithful in thy Lord's employ. 
Enter now into His joy I " 



LIFE'S WEST WINDOWS. 

^E stand at life's west windows. 

And think of the days that ar« 
gone; 
Hemembering the coming sunset. 
We too must remember the morn ; 
But the sun will set, the day will close. 
And an end will come to all our woes. 




62 



LIFE'S WEST WINDOWS, 



As we watch from the western casements, 

Beviewing our happy youth, 
We mourn for its vanished promise 
Of honor, ambition, and truth ; 
But hopes will fail and pride decay. 
When we think how soon we must away. 

We stand at life's west windows, 

And turn not sadly away. 
To watch on our children's faces 
The noontide of sparkling day ; 
But our sun must set, our lips grow dumb, 
And to look from our windows our children 
come. 

Still looking from life's west windows ; 

And we know we would not again 
Look forth from the eastern lattice, 
And live over all life's pain ; 
Though life's sunlight be brilliant, its sunset 

is sweet, 
Since it brings longed-for rest to our weary 
feet. 



OLD AGE. 

HAIL, blest Old Age ! when life well-spent 
is crowned 
With years and honors, loved, revered, 
renowned ; 
Earth's noblest state, where all ripe virtues 

blend, 
And life's best hopes in rich fruition end. 
So the round year, its hoarded labors won, 
Basks 'midst its stores, 'neath autumn's gold- 
en sun. 
And when white locks and venerable years 
Are crowned with holy piety, that cheers 
Life's slow decline, and o'er its closing days. 
Then Time's supremest gift to man is given. 
And doubly crowned, he tastes both earth 
and heaven. 

How glorious stood earth's patriarchs of old 
While ages lapsed, and centuries unrolled 
The long and labored tapestry of time 
Thick-wrought with wisdom's golden love 

sublime. 
3ee Noah, prophet of the elder world 
Great sire of tribes whose standards, far un- 
furled, 
Three continents explore ; yet age on age 
Return with homage to the awful sage 
Whose heaven-inspired benign, paternal sway 
Gilds realms on realms that love, revere, obey. 



Blest day divine when heavenly strangers 

trod 
The plain where dwelt in peace the friend of 

God! 
At his tent's door, while passed the sultry 

hours. 
The patriarch breathed the balm of Hebron*s 

bowers 
When he and Sarah, save one wish, content, 
In thankful, pious love life's evening spent : 
That wish heaven hears, they clasp their 

infant boy. 
And Isaac fills God's goodness and their joy. 

How blest was Jacob when he saw in truth 
Through age-dimmed eyes kis Joseph lost in 

youth ; 
When Egypt's lord with pride his sire avowed. 
And Egypt's king to crave his blessing 

bowed ; 
When on his seer-like soul in vision rose 
His countless race, triumphant o'er their 

foes, 
Till Zion's glory fired his passing soul. 
And Shiloh's coming dawned from pole to 

polel 

So Moses, graced, not bent, with six-score 

years 
Time's matchless son, in fadeless prime 

appears ! 
On Nebo's dome, with eyes undimmed and 

bright, 
Erom Hor's brown crags to Hermon's snow- 
crowned height, 
From Syria's sands to ocean's ftir-off shore. 
He views the long-sought country o'er and 

o'er. 
What wondrous ways his pilgrim feet have 

trod 
Since, scorning Egypt's crown for Israel's 

God, 
Through four-score years Jehovah's grace and 

power 
Have led him safe, to life's last glorious 

hour 1 
Before his eyes the hills of promise glow; 
Freed, taught by him, a nation camps below; 
Proud Egypt slumbers where the sea-waves 

moan ; 
Nations unborn earth's noblest law shall 

own; 
Jehovah's name adored by man once more — 
God's glory here, immortal life before 1 



53 



OLD AGE. 



What honor crowned great Samuel's parting 

hours ; 
And mighty David's, mourned by Gentile 

powers ; 
How great Elijah's lightning soul o'ercame 
Age, sorrow, death, and leapt to God in 

flame ! 
How aged Paul, the good fight fought, the 

faith 
Proclaimed and kept, could mock the grave 

and death ! 
How John, beneath a century's spotless 

snows, 
Still breathed that love which through the 

seraphs glows ! 
O, Tully, noblest soul of sovereign Eome, 
Whose golden periods down the centuries 

roam. 
Mellifluous, matchless, how thy honied 

page. 
Where virtuous Cato praises pure Old Age, 
Culling such lives as grace my humble line. 
Had dropped with nectared sweetness quite 

divine ! 

But lo, beyond time's bounds Heaven's crystal 

throne 
In glory looms, and like a sardine stone 
Or ruddy jasper, He who fills it glows : — 
Around his feet, redeemed from sin's dark 

woes. 
Sit four and twenty Elders, mortal forms. 
Hoary and white with time's wild years and 

storms ; 
Old men from Earth, who, 'mid that heavenly 

throng. 
Sit next the Lamb whose faith they kept so 

long: 
Sages and seers and bards and prophets old, 
Priests, patriarchs, kings, apostles, martyrs 

bold. 
Heads of the Church, who lead her hosts 

through time, 
And now sit next the throne in rest sublime ! 
What were immortal youth to age like this. 
Throned, crowned, revered through heaven's 

long years of bliss ! 

Great Father, hear thy child's adoring prayer : 

I ask not age, but if thy wisdom spare 

This life, bestowed by thee, to lengthened 

years, 
Oh make them pure and peaceful, free from 

fears, 



Useful and wise ! When passions' fires are 

past, 
Let nobler flames burn quenchless to the 

last; 
Valor for right, high scorn of base control, 
And eagle ardor kindle still my soul. 
Let Christ-like goodness, humble charity, 
God's gifts alone, take root, bear fruit in 

me ; 
And when at last, I sleep beneath the sod, 
May it be said. He loved both man and God. 

G. L. TAYLOR. 



OUR PILGRIMAGE. 

WE are passing toward final rest. 
Do not regret it if the eyes grow 
dim. You will see better by- 
and-by. If the ear is growing heavy, do 
not be sorry. If your youth is passing, 
and your beauty fading, do not mourn. 
If your hand trembles, and your foot is 
unsteady with age, be not depressed in 
spirit. With every impediment, with 
ev^ry sign of the taking down of this 
tabernacle, remember that it is the strik- 
ing of the tent that the march may begin, 
and when next you pitch your tabernacle 
it shall be on an undisturbed shore, and 
that there, with eyes unwet with tears, 
through an atmosphere undimmed by 
clouds, and before a God unveiled, and 
never to be wrapped in darkness any more 
— that there, looking back upon this world 
of ignorance, and suffering, and trouble, 
and upon the hardships of the way, you 
will, with full and discerning reason, lift 
up your voice, and give thanks to God 
and say, " There was not one trouble too 
much ; there was not one sorrow too pierc- 
ing.'^ And you will thank God in that 
land for the very things that wring tears 
from your eyes in this. Look, then, to 
that better land, out of all the trouble of 
the way — sigh for it, pray for it, prepare 
for it, and enter into it. 



54 






RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 



1' 



'^"^^X£^2>' 




m 



omo 



?ATURE age is a hill from 
^vhich one may look in 
opposite directions — back- 
ward and for^Yard. It is 
a kindly arrangement of 
Providence by which the 
aged are not only inclined to look back- 
ward to early life, but the scenes of child- 
hood and youth are made unusually dis- 
tinct. "When the faculties are so much 
impaired or clouded that memory loses the 
impression of recent events, the scenes of 
early life are recalled and retained with 
wonderful freshness and vividness. Per- 
sons who could not retain in mind what 
they had seen or heard five minutes before, 
can repeat with accuracy whole pages of 
hymns, the odes of Horace, Cowper's 
poems, which they committed to memory 
when they were boys. That which is 
intrusted to memory in childhood is like 
the casting of plaster when it is fresh 
and liquid; it sets, and every line 
and edge is permanently preserved. 
If the young did but know it, what- 
they are saying, and thinking, and read- 
ing, and doing is fresco-painting, the 
colors striking through the fresh mortar, 
and hardening into permanent forms by 
the progress of time. The review of life 
by the aged gives a peculiar pleasure. The 
little annoyances which were felt day by 
day in earlier life drop out of view. Chil- 
dren have their own griefs and trials. 
These are largely forgotten as time goes 
on, and the pleasant things of childhood 
remain like a bright picture before the 
dim eye of the aged. The first home, 
father and mother, the fireside and the 
barn, the brook and the meadow, school 



and vacation, the trees, the birds and the 
animals, the seasons, spring, summer, 
autumn, and winter, how clear and dis- 
tinct they are ! It is as if they were all 
back again, and this to relieve the burdens, 
cheer the loneliness, and comfort the in- 
firmities of age. How much of thank- 
fulness is diffused through the heart by 
these pleasant memories of early life ! By 
means of them, age is often toned do\\Ti 
into ineffable sweetness, so that not 
unfrequently old men and little child- 
ren are the closest and happiest com- 
panions. 

Some things there are in the review of 
everv life which are to be rescretted. 
Happy is he who recalls but few of them 
associated with remorse. This is the 
sharpness of that remorse — the acts by 
which it is excited can not be changed or 
obliterated. The unkind word, the un- 
dutiful act toward an affectionate parent ! 
AVould that this parent were now^ alive, to 
be soothed bv our confession and au2:ment- 
ed tenderness. But now the wrong which 
we did, stands like an oak or a rock, against 
which we brace ourselves, and strain, only 
to become conscious of our inability to 
move it. Nothing crumbles — nothing can 
be removed from the honest past. It 
stands. As we look at it, what occasion 
have we to make use of the prayer which 
inspiration has made ready for us, ^* Re-- 
member not the sins of my youth, nor my 
transgressions; according to thy mercy, 
remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, 
O Lord !" (Psalm xxv., 7.) So much of 
imagination mingles with all anticipations 
of the young that one is apt to be deceived 
in regard to his probable character and 



00 



RETROSPECT AXD PROSPECT, 



conduct ; the past is simple, real fact, and 
so much of defect and unworthiness are 
associated with it all, that an honest 
mind must feel its need of divine 
forgiveness, resting more and more im- 
plicitly on the abounding grace of Jesus 
Christ. 

Threescore years and ten I In prospect 
how remote! in retrospect how brief! 
How long appears the journey when set- 
ting out ! how short when it has been ac- 
complished ! 

" Time in advance behind him hides his "wings, 
And seems to creep decrepit with his age. 
Behold him when passed by : what then is seen 
But his broad pinions, swifter than the wind." 

Each day has two twilights, that of the 
mornino^ and that of the eveninor. The 
latter darkens into night, the former 
brightens into day. ^^ The way of the 
wicked is as darkness ; they know not at 
what they stumble. But the path of the 
just is as the shining light, that shineth 
more and more unto the perfect day." 
Here is a phenomenon which can be ex- 
plained only by the comforts and ^^romises 
of the Gospel of Chist. Cicero wrote a 
treatise on old age which has come down 
into our hands. It contains much — we 
might say all of the wisdom of the world. 
The utmost which it pretends to teach is 
how to grow old, and be old, with some- 
what of resignation and gracefulness. The 
Gospel of our Redeemer, bringing life and 
immortality to light, teaches man how to 
advance in life, and terminate life with 
cheerfulness, gladness, and joy. It con- 
tinually presents, what nothing else ever 
did or can, the sure method by which one 
may always, even to the very last day of 
life, be confident tliai the best jjart of exist- 
ence is yet to come. It supplies man with 
what is better than all memory, even with 
an unfailing object of hope. Bright and 
pleasant was life's morning. Gratitude is 



enkindled by recalling all that was so 
happy in childhocd and youth. But faith 
assures us that our greatest happiness is 
not receding, but approaching. T-^:anks 
for the way in which God has led us thus 
far; but, turning to that which is before 
us, what is it ? Gloom, fear, nothingness ? 
Oh no. AVe have a sure word of the Lord, 
which reveals and promises what is per- 
manent, blessed, and divine. True life is 
before us, not behind us. Our best and 
hap2)iest youth is yet to come. God has 
promised his adopted children perpetual 
rejuvenescence. " The outward man per- 
isheth, but the inward man is renewed day 
by day/*' How often is this realized in 
the experience of Christian believers! 
^Vhen the eye has lost its lustre, and the 
ear its quickness — when the frameis bowed, 
and the silvered head droops, peace be- 
comes like a river, and joy as the waves 
of the sea. "They that wait upon the 
Lord shall renew their strength ; they shall 
mount up with wings as eagles; they shall 
run and not be weary ; they shall walk and 
not faint." 

Those far advanced in life are in dano-er 
of regarding themselves as useless in the 
world, because incapable of active service 
after the manner of younger life. Many 
are saddened by the mistaken thought that 
they are cumbering the ground. The 
contrary is true decidedly, emphatically, 
of the aged found in the way of righteous- 
ness. The simple, quiet, trustful contin- 
uance of such is a public benefit. The 
hoary head, with its glory of true Chris- 
tian faith, is a testimony in honor of 
religion which can never be gainsaid or 
silenced. At no time is passive goodness 
so potent. It is, indeed, light at eventide. 
It is a proof of our faith when one who is 
bereft of all which the world esteems, like 
a tree stripped of its foliage, can, in his old 
age, look forward with comfort and cheer- 



56 



RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 



fulness to that better life which is prom- 
ised by his divine and faithful Redeemer. 
Talk of the beaut v of childhood I — it is of 
its own kind. But there is another beau- 
ty — old age, leaning happily on Christ, 
and looking forward, without fear, with- 
out gloom, without doubt, to that glory 
which is YET TO be eevealed. 



WILLIAM ADAMS. 



THE OLD WIFE'S KISS. 

THE funeral services were ended ; 
and, as the voice of prayer ceased, 
tears were hastily wiped from 
wet cheeks, and long-dra^Ti sighs 
relieved suj^pressed and choking 
sobs, as the mourners prepared to take 
leave of the corpse. It was an old man 
who lay there, robed for the grave. More 
than three-score years had whitened those 
locks, and furrowed that brow, and 
made those stiff limbs weary of life's 
journey, and the more willing to be at 
rest where weariness is no longer a burden. 
The aged have few to weep for them 
when they die. The most of those who 
would have mourned their loss have gone 
to the grave before them ; harps that 
would have sighed sad harmonies are 
shattered and gone; and the few that 
remain are looking cradleward, rather 
than to life's closing goal ; are bound to, 
and living in, the generation rising, more 
than the generation departing. Youth 
and beauty have many admirers while 
living, — have many mourners when dying, 
— and many tearful ones bend over their 
coffined clay, many sad hearts follow in 
their funeral train ; but age has few ad- 
mirers, few mourners. 

This was an old man, and the circle of 
mourners was small : two children, who 
had themselves passed the middle of life, 
and who had children of their own to 
care for and be cared for by them. Beside 
these, and a few friends who had seen and 



visited him while he was sick, and possi- 
bly had known him for a few years, there 
were none others to shed a tear, except 
his old wife ; and of this small company, 
the old wife seemed to be the only heart- 
mourner. It is respectful for his friends 
to be sad a few moments, till the service 
is performed and the hearse out of sight. 
It is very proper and suitable for children, 
who have outgrown the fervency and 
affection of youth, to shed tears when an 
aged parent says farewell, and lies down 
to quiet slumber. Some regrets, some 
recollection of the past, some transitory 
griefe, and the pangs are over. 

The old wife arose with difficulty from 
her seat, and went to the coffin to look 
her last look — to take her last farewell 
Through the fast falling tears she gazed 
long and fondly down into the pale, un- 
conscious face. AVhat did she see there ? 
Others saw nothing but the rigid features 
of the dead ; she saw more. In every 
wrinkle of that brow she read the history 
of years ; from youth to manhood, from 
manhood to old age, in joy and sorrow, 
in sickness and health, it was all there; 
when those children, who had not quite 
outgrown the symj^athies of childhood, 
were infants lying on her bosom, and 
every year since then — there it was. To 
others, those dull, mute monitors were 
unintelligible ; to her they were the alpha- 
bet of the heart, familiar as household 
words. 

Then the future : " What will become 
of me? What shall I do now?" She did 
not say so, but she felt it. The prospect 
of the old wife is clouded ; the home cir- 
cle is broKen, never to be reunited ; the 
visions of the hearth-stone are scattered 
forever. Up to that hour tliere was a 
home to which the heart always turned 
with fondness. That magic is now sun- 
dered, the key- stone of that sacred arch 
has fallen, and home is nowhere this side 
of lieaven ! Shall she gather up the scat- 
tered fragments of the broken arch, make 



57 



THE OLD WIFE'S KISS. 



4)liem her temple and her shrine, sit down 
in her chill solitude beside its expiring 
fires, and die? What shall she do 
now ? 

They gently crowded her away from 
the dead, and the undertaker came for- 
ward, with the coffin-lid in his hand. It 
is all right and proper, of course, it must 
be done; but to the heart-mourner it 
brings a kind of shudder, a thrill of 
agony. The undertaker stood for a mo- 
ment, with a decent propriety, not wish- 
ing to manifest rude haste, but evidently 
desirous of being as expeditious as possi- 
ble. Just as he was about to close the 
coffin, the old wife turned back, and stoop- 
ing down, imprinted one long, last kiss 
upon the cold lips of her dead husband, 
then staggered to her seat, buried her face 
in her hands, and the closing coffin hid 
him from her sight forever ! 

That kiss ! fond token of affection, and 
of sorrow, and memory, and farewell ! I 
have seen many kiss their dead, many 
such seals of love upon clay-cold lips, but 



never did I see one so purely sad, so sim- 
ply heart-touching and hopeless as that. 
Or, if it had hope, it was that which looks 
beyond coffins, and charnel houses, and 
damp, dark, tombs, to the joys of the 
home above. You would kiss the cold 
cheek of infancy ; there is poetry ; it is 
beauty hushed; there is romance there, 
for the faded flower is still beautiful. In 
childhood the heart yields to the stroke 
of sorrow, but recoils again with elastic 
faith, buoyant with hope ; but here was 
no beauty, no poetry, no romance. 

The heart of the old wife was like the 
weary swimmer, whose strength has often 
raised him above the stormy waves, but 
now, exhausted, sinks amid the surges. 
The temple of her earthly hopes had 
fallen, and what was there left for her but 
to sit down in despondency, among its 
lonely ruins, and weep and die ! or, in the 
spirit of a better hope, await the dawning 
of another day, when a Hand divine shall 
gather its sacred dust, and rebuild for 
immortality its broken walls ! 



^^3f^ 



SATURDAY AFTERNOON. 



LOVE to look on a scene like this, 
Of wild and careless play, 
And persuade myself that I am not old, 
And my locks are not yet gray ; 
For it stirs the blood in an old man's heart, 

And makes his pulses fly. 
To catch the thrill of a happy voice, 
And the light of a pleasant eye. 



Play on ! play on ! I am with you there, 

In the midst of your merry ring ; 
I can feel the thrill of the daring jump. 

And the rush of the breathless swing. 
I hide with you in the fragrant hay. 

And I whoop the smothered call. 
And my feet slip up on the seedy floor, 

And I care not for the fall. 



I have walked the world for fourscore years. 

And they say that I am old — 
That my heart is ripe for the reaper Death, 

And my years are well-nigh told. 
It is very true — it is very true — 

I am old, and I " bide my time ; " 
But my heart will leap at a scene like this, 

And I half renew my prime. 



I am willing to die when my time shall come 

And I shall be glad to go — 
For the world, at bes<",, is a weary i)lace, 

And my pulse is getting low ; 
But the grave is dark, and the heart will fail 

In treading its gloomy way ; 
And it wiles my heart from its dreariness 

To see the young so gay. 

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS. 



58 



THOUGHTS OF HEAVEN. 



^J^jpk^yD there truly is nothing 
which, should keep your 
desires from heaven. Ko; 
not that delightful circle of 
^^; --^'^ home where the parent's eye 

o t 1." a 111* 

"•" may glisten as he looks 

iipon his child, and the child may smile 
with joy because it gazes on its father ; or, 
more loving still, when it looks upon its 
mother — there is naught even there which 
can abstract the desires from heaven ; and 
the only modification of that desire should 
be that children, and parents, and breth- 
ren, and sistei^ should all meet in heaven. 
Ko ; there is nothing, when here we meet 
round the table of the Lord, and Christian 
comes by Christian to taste the bread and 
wine which shows forth the Lord's death 
till he comes — till we all meet as by one 
electric impulse upon the spirit — till we 
all blend together in one, being members 
of his body, and his flesh, and his bone — 
there is nothing here that can abstract the 
desires from heaven ; the only modifica- 
tion of that desire must be that those who 
break the bread and drink the wine may 
have fulfilled at last the glorious promise, 
'^Verily, I will no more taste of the fruit 
of the vine until that day when I drink it 
new with you in my Father's kingdom." 
Onward and onward still, from year to 
year, and from day to day, must the Chris- 
tian spirit press in its desire toward heaven. 
It will be, my brethren, but a little longer, 
and then that desire shall be fulfilled, and 
mortality will be swallowed up in life. 
The portal shall be entered, and the spirit 
shall gaze round on the wonders of its 
completed salvation. What pearly gates 
are there ? What jasper walls are these? 
Wliat golden streets are these? What 
splendid palaces are these? What im- 
mortal trees are these? What crystal 
streams are these ? What amaranthine 



bowers are these ? These are the spirits 
of the just, and I see my parents, my 
partner, and my children, and they beckon 
to the entrance. There is Jesus, whom 
my soul hath loved, and now I behold 
him with the glory of his Godhead. And 
there is the overshadowing splendor of 
everlasting happiness, which breathes bless- 
ings on all beneath it. And this — this is 
heaven ! Earth, I have nothing to do 
with thee, with thy dull days and thy 
nights of darkness. I have left thee, with 
thy storms and tempests — with thy dis- 
tressing temptations and thy polluting 
scenes. I have left thee with thy sorrows, 
thy bereavements, thy diseases, and thy 
destinies. This — this is heaven ! Am I 
come there? Then redemption and im- 
mortality are mine. Oh, brethren, in the 
body or out of the body, can we tell? 
Have not your desires expanded and ex- 
tended till even now you listen to the 
song, and inhale the atmosphere of heaven ? 
We must come back again to earth till the 
will of God removes us ; but as we descend 
to the world of mortality, and of sorrow, 
and of sin, in which we must breathe a 
little longer, we can not but send our de- 
sires to him who has gone before us, 
" When shall I come and appear before 
God ? " '' Oh that I had the wings of a 
dove, then I would flee away and be at 
rest!" 

JAMES PARSONS. 



NEARER HEAVEN. 

Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed-- 
Romans xiii., n. 

XE sweetly solemn thought 

Comes to me o'er and o'er — 
I'm nearer home to-<lay 
Than I've ever been before. 

Nearer my Father's house, 
WTiere the many mansions be ; 



od 



NEARER HE A VEN, 



Nearer the great white throne, 
Nearer the crystal sea. 

Nearer the bound of life, 

Where we lay our burden down ; 

Nearer leaving the cross, 
Nearer gaining the crown. 

But lying daily between. 

Winding down through the night, 
Is the deep and unknown stream 

That leads at last to the light. 

Jesus, perfect my trust, 

Strengthen the band of my faith ; 
Let me feel Thee near when I stand 

On the edge of the shore of death ; 

Feel Thee near when my feet 
Are slipping over the brink ;' 

For it may be I'm nearer home. 
Nearer now than I think. 

PHCEBE GARY, 



NO NIGHT IN HEAVEN, 

NO night shall be in heaven ; no gathering 
gloom 
Shall o'er that glorious landscape ever 
come ; 
No tears shall fall in sadness o'er those flowers 
That breathe their fragrance through celestial 
bowers. 

No night shall be in heaven ; forbid to sleep. 
These eyes no more their mournful vigils 

keep ; 
Their fountains dried, their tears all wiped 

away. 
They gaze undazzled on eternal day. 

No night shall be in heaven ; no sorrow reign. 
No secret anguish, no corporeal pain, 
No shivering limbs, no burning fever there. 
No soul's eclipse, no winter of despair. 

No night shall be in heaven, but endless 

noon ; 
No fast declining sun, no waning moon ; 
But there the Lamb shall yield perpetual 

light 
'Mid pastures green and waters ever bright. 



No night shall be in heaven ; no darkened 

room, 
No bed of death, nor silence of the tomb, 
But breezes ever fresh with love and truth 
Shall brace the frame with an immortal youth. 

No night shall be in heaven, but night is 
here. 

The night of sorrow, and the night of fear ; 

I mourn the ills that now my steps attend, 

And shrink from others that may yet im- 
pend. 

No night shall be in heaven. Oh, had I faith 
To rest in what the faithful witness saith, 
That faith should make these hideous phan- 
toms flee. 
And leave no night henceforth on earth 
to me. 



NO SORROW THERE. 

THIS earthly life has been fitly charac- 
terized as a pilgrimage through a 
vale of tears. In the language of 
poetry, man himself has been called a 
pendulum betwixt a smile and a tear. 
Everything in this world is characterized 
by imperfection. The best people have 
many faults. The clearest mind only 
sees through a glass darkly. The purest 
heart is not without spot. All the inter- 
course of society, all the transactions of 
business, all our estimates of human con- 
duct and motive must be based upon the 
sad assumption that we cannot wholly 
trust either ourselves or our fellow-men. 
Every heart has its grief, every house 
has its skeleton, every character is marred 
with weakness and imperfection. And 
all these aimless conflicts of our minds 
and unanswered longings of our hearts 
should lead us to rejoice the more in the 
divine assurance that a time is coming 
when night shall melt into noon, and the 
mystery shall be clothed with glory. 



DANIEL MARCH, D. D. 



60 



HAPPY s OLD $ AGE. f 




OTHING so smooths out 
wrinkles from the brow as a 
sound Christian experience. 
When the heart is full of 
peace, the face is apt to be 
full of smiles. The coun- 
tenance, as a faithful index 
of the soul, can not do other- 
wise than manifest the joy which reigns 
within. The best way to make a good 
face is to cultivate a good heart. It is one 
of the compensations for the decay of 
nature, that age can derive a serenity and 
lustre from the radiant spirit of piety 
which renders it so attractive as to forbid 
all thought of diminished power and every 
feeling of repulsion. ^^ Every thing is 
beautiful in its time. If the glory of 
young men is their strength, the beauty 
of old men is the gray head.^' '' The gray 
head is a crown of glory when it is found 
in the way of righteousness." All things 
young and tender draw by their sweetness 
and promise — innocence is associated with 
them, and there is a charm in original 
freshness for the hardest nature; hence, 
all men delight in young children and 
young animals ; but equally, age which is 
ripened by large and healthful experiences, 
mellowed by happy and generous views 
of God and humanity, is an object of 
universal recognition and pleasure. The 
happy old man is never envied or hated, 
but always congratulated and loved. Hav- 
ing passed the rivalries and strifes ot life, 
he usually receives the full measure of 
consideration which is his due. 

I say the happy aged man is never 
envied ; yet truly if any man's state is to 
be coveted, it is his. " Better is the end of 
a thing than the beginning thereof." A 
journey safely ended, a work well finished, 

6X 



a battle fought and the victory won : sure* 
ly to end a life with a good conscience, to 
arrive at advanced years with a character 
unimpeached, a faith undiramed, and a 
spirit unbroken — this is a consummation 
of all others most to be desired. We look 
at a child, and while we are drawn toward 
its simplicity, and are impressed with its 
promise, yet a cold shudder creeps over 
us as we think of the possibilities of evil 
which the little nature compresses within 
it. What an uncertain path it must tread ! 
To how many dangers it must be exposed ! 
So that, in the presence of the joy inspired 
by childhood, there obtrudes the terrible 
misgiving as to its future and ultimate 
safety. But no such doubts come when 
we look into the calm eyes of the veteran 
Christian, whose habits of goodness have 
become so fixed as to make his final salva- 
tion almost if not wholly a moral cer- 
tainty. We would think it a great priv- 
ilege to see angels who have been in 
heaven. Angels are all about us. These 
aged saints of God, who, if they have not 
already been there, are quite as sure to be 
as if their feet had already touched the 
pavements of gold, and the crowns of 
glory had already pressed their victorious 
brows. One of God's best gifts to his 
Church is, that he allows such to linger 
among his people in every community, 
whose names are household words, syn- 
onyms of piety, and whose presence is a 
holy fragrance in the congregation and in 
the home. 

If there is a peculiar satisfaction in con- 
templating age purified and gladdened by 
piety, there is an equally intense pain in 
looking at an old person who is desti- 
tute of the comforts of religion. It is 
bad enough when such a one, however 



HAPPY OLD AGE. 



amiable and thoughtful, is indifferent to 
spiritual truth : to see an aged man, whose 
days are few, insensible to its claims, is a 
sad sight ; but to see him not only insen- 
sible, but wicked and frivolous, is both 
painful and pitiable. There is something 
30 far removed from good sense, as well 
as good religion, for a person under the 
Weight of years to attempt to cheat him- 
self and everybody else by assuming, in 
the very shadow of the grave, a light and 
trifling manner, that one scarcely knows 
how to restrain contempt. Respect for 
gray hairs and a sorrow which over-bal- 
ances all other feelings alone check and 
hold it back. How such hate to grow old ! 
to what tricks do they resort to stave off 
the approach of decay ! They try to light 
a fire on the outside which should be 
lighted within. Their experience is, in 
many things, very pleasant, but it is not 
the experience which worketh hope — the 
Christian hope. The flowers of the heart 
lie withered in a dead past, which can 
never return : no buds of promise, look- 



ing out toward the sunlight of the sky, 
swell in their souls. The past is gone, and 
there is no future of immortal life to beck- 
on the heart away. The eye catches no 
lustre from the radiance of heaven, the 
brightness of the adorable Lamb, and now 
is dim indeed, both from infirmity and 
despondency. While the aged believer is 
like the mariner who, as he nears the end 
of his voyage to the Spice Islands, is al- 
ready regaled with the sweet odors of the 
clime he seeks, the aged irreligious man is 
as one sailing toward the frozen seas, with 
whom the chilly breath is felt long before 
the seas are reached. The cheerlessness 
of an old man whose heart knows nothing 
of the warmth of di\ane love and Chris- 
tian faith is indescribable. It is, however, 
a grateful thought, that through the hard 
crust of inveterate habits of impiety, grace 
can and does often penetrate. The aged 
sinner need not despair, for even his wilted 
heart may revive with all the freshness of 
a spiritual joy, which is the foretaste and 
pledge of eternal bliss. 



H. B. RIDGAWAY. 



FINISH THY WORK. 



"W^INISH thy work, the time is short — 
M^ The sun is in the west, 

The night is coming down — till then, 
Think not of rest. 

Yes, finish all thy work, then rest; 

Till then, rest never : 
The rest prepared for thee above 

Is rest forever. 

Finish thy work, then wipe thy brow : 

Ungird thee from thy toil; 
Take breath, and from each weary limb 

Shake off the soil. 

Finish thy work, then sit thee dowu 
On some celestial hill, 



And of its strength-reviving air 
Take thou thy fill. 

Finish thy work, then go in peace ; 

Life's battle fought and won, 
Hear from the throne the Master's voice, 

"Well done! well done ! " 

Finish thy work, then take thy harp, 

Give praise to God above; 
Sing a new song of endless joy 

And everlasting love. 

Give thanks to Him who held thee up 

In all thy path below; 
Who made thee faithful unto death, 

And crowns thee now I 



62 




^ THE HAPPIEST TIME. ^ 



^^"^^^^^ 



OLD man 

sat in his 
chimney- 
seat, 
As the morn- 
ing sunbeam 
crept to his 
feet ; 
And he watched the 
Spring light as it 
came 
With wider ray on 
his window frame. 
He looked right on 
to the Eastern 
sky, 
But his breath grew 
long in a trem- 
bling sigh, 
And those who heard it wondered much 
What Spirit hand made him feel its touch. 

For the old man was not one of the fair 
And sensitive plants in earth's parterre ; 
His heart was among the senseless things, 
That rarely are fanned by the honey-bee*s 

wings ; 
It bore no film of delicate pride, 
No dew of emotion gathered inside ; 
O, that old man's heart was of hardy kind, 
That seemeth to heed not the sun or the wind. 

He had lived in the world as millions live. 

Ever more ready to take than give; 

He had worked and wedded, and murmured 

and blamed, 
And just paid to the fraction what honesty 

claimed ; 
He had driven his bargains and counted his 

gold, 
Till upwards of threescore years were told ; 
And his keen blue eye held nothing to show 
That feeling had ever been busy below. 

The old man sighed again, and hid 

His keen blue eye beneath its lid; 

And his wrinkled forehead, bending down, 

Was knitting itself in a painful frown. 



63 



"I've been looking back," the old man said, 

" On every spot where my path has laid, 
Over every year my brain can trace, 
To find the happiest time and place." 

" And where and when," cried one by his side, 
" Have you found the brightest wave in your 

tide? 
Come tell me freely, and let me learn, 
How the spark was struck that yet can bum. 
Was it when you stood in stalwart strength. 
With the blood of youth, and felt that at length 
Your stout right arm could win its bread ? " 
The old man quietly shook his head. 

" Then it must have been when love had come, 
With a faithful bride to glad your home ; 
Or when the first-born cooed and smiled, 
And your bosom cradled its own sweet child; 
Or was it when that first-born joy, 
Grew up to your hope, — a brave, strong boy, — 
And promised to fill the world in your stead?" 
The old man quietly shook his head. 

"Say, was it then when fortune brought 
The round sum you had frugally sought? 
Was the year the happiest that beheld 
The vision of poverty all dispelled ? 
Or was it when you still had more. 
And found you could boast a goodly store 
With labor finished and plenty spread ? " 
The old man quietly shook his head. 

" Ah, no ! ah, no ! it was longer ago," 
The old man muttered, — sadly and low I 
" It was when I took my lonely way 
To the lonely woods in the month of May, 
When the Spring light fell as it falleth now, 
With the bloom on the sod and the leaf on the 

bough ; 
When I tossed up my cap at the nest in the 

tree; 
O, that was the happiest time for me. 

" When I used to leap and laugh and shout. 
Though I never knew what my joy was about; 
And sometning seemed to warm my breast. 
As I sat on a mossy bank to rest. 
That was the time ; when I used to roll 



THE HAPPIEST TIME, 



On the blue-bells that covered the upland 

knoll, 
And I never could tell why the thought should 

be, 
But I fancied the flowers talked to me. 

** Well I remember climbing to reach 
A squirrel brood rocked on the top of a beech ; 
Well I remember the lilies so sweet, 
"that I toiled with back to the city street ; 
Yes, thai was the time, — ^the happiest time, — 
When I went to the woods in their May-day 
prime." 



And the old man breathed with a longer sigh. 
And the lid fell closer over his eye. 

O, who would have thought this hard old man 
Had room in his heart for si ;h rainbow span? 
Who would have deemed that wild copse 

flowers 
Were tenderly haunting his la est liours? 
But what did the old man's spirit tell, 
In confessing it loved the wo- ds so well ? 
What do we learn from thf man's sigli^ 
But that Nature and Poetry mot die ? 

ELIZA COOJl. 



THE LONG AGO. -^^-^ 



EYES, which can but ill define 
Shapes that rise about and near, 
Through the far horizon's line 
Stretch a vision free and clear; 
Memories, feeble to retrace 

Yesterday's immediate flow, 
Find a dear familiar face 
In each hour of Long-ago, 

Follow yon majestic train 

Down the slopes of old renown ; 
Knightly forms without disdain, 

Sainted heads without a frown ; 
Emperors of thought and hand 

Congregate, a glorious show. 
Met from every age and land 

In the plains of Long-ago. 

As the heart of childhood brings 

Something of eternal joy 
From its own unsounded springs. 

Such as life can scarce destroy j 
So, remindful of the prime. 

Spirits wandering to and fro 
Rest upon the resting time 

in the peace of Long-ago. 

Youthful Hope's religious fire, 
When it burns no longer leaves 



Ashes of impure desire 

On the altars it bereaves ; 
But the light that fills the past 

Sheds a still diviner glow, 
Ever farther it is cast 

O^er the scenes of Long-ago. 

Many a growth of pain and care, 

Cumbering all the present hour. 
Yields, when once transplanted there. 

Healthy fruit or pleasant flower. 
Thoughts that hardly flourish here. 

Feelings long have ceased to blow, 
Breathe a native atmosphere 

I^ the world of Long-ago. 

On that deep-retiring shore. 

Frequent pearls of beauty lie. 
Where the passion- waves of yore 

Fiercely beat and mounted high ; 
Sorrows — that are sorrows still — 

Lose the bitter taste of woe ; 
Nothing's altogether ill 

In the griefs of Long-ago. 

Tombs where lonely love repines, 
Ghastly tenements of tears, 

Wear the look of happy shrines 
Through the golden mist of years; 



64 




AVI^TEK. 



THE LONG AGO. 



Death, to those who trust in good, 
Vindicates his hardest blow; 

Oh ! we would not if we could, 
"Wake the sleep of Long-ago. 

Though the doom of swift decay- 
Shocks the soul where life is strong ; 

Though for frailer hearts the day 
Lingers sad and overlong — 

Still the w^eight will find a leaven, 
Still the spoiler^s hand is slow. 

While the future has its Heaven, 
And the past its Long-ago. 

RICHARD MONCKTON MILNKS. 

(Lord Houghton.) 



THE OLD MAN GOES TO SCHOOL. 

1KN0W I'm too old to learn, wife ; my 
lessons and tasks are done ! 
The dews of life's evenin' glisten in the 
light of life's settin' sun. 
To the grave by the side of my fathers 
they'll carry me soon away ; 
But I wanted to see how the world had grown, 
so I hobbled to school to-day. 

I couldn't a told 'twas a school-house ; it tow- 
ered up to the skies ; 

I gazed on the noble structure till dimmer 
grew these old eyes. 

My thoughts went back to the log-house — the 
school-house of long ago, 

Where I studied and romped with the merry 
boys who sleep where the daisies grow. 

I was startled out of my dreamin' by the tones 

of its monstrous bell ; 
On these ears that are growin' deaf the sweet 

notes rose and fell. 
I entered the massive door, and sat in the 

proffered chair — 
An old man, wrinkled and gray, in the midst 

of the young and the fair. 

Like a garden of bloomin' roses, the school- 
room appeared to me — • 

The children were all so tidy, their faces so 
full of glee ; 

They stared at me when I entered, tlien broke 
o'er the whisperin' rule, 

And said, with a smile, to each other, " The 
old m.an's a-comin' to school." 
5b 65 



When the country here was new, wife — ^when 

I was a scholar-lad. 
Our readin' and writin' and spellin' weW 

'bout all the studies we had. 
We cleared up the farm through the summer, 

then traveled through woods and snow 
To the log-house in the openin', the schocl- 

house of years ago. 

Now boys go to school in a palace, and study 

hard Latin and Greek ; 
They are taught to write scholarly essays; 

they are drilled on the stage to speak; 
They go into the district hopper, but come 

out of the college spout ; 
And this is the way the schools of our land 

are grindin' our great men out. 

Let 'em grind ! let 'em grind, dear wife ! the 

world needs the good and the true; 
Let the children out of the old house and 

trot 'em into the new. 
I'll cheerfully pay my taxes, and say to this 

age of mine. 
All aboard ! all aboard ! go ahead ! if you 

leave the old man behind ! 

Our system of common schools is the nation's 

glory and crown ; 
May the arm be palsied, ever, that is lifted to 

tear it down. 
If bigots cannot endure the light of our 

glowin' skies. 
Let them go to oppression's shore, where 

Liberty bleeds and dies. 

I'm glad I've been to-day to the new house, 
large and grand ; 

With pride I think of my toils in this liberty- 
loving land ; 

I've seen a palace arise where the old log 
school-house stood, 

And gardens of beauty bloom where the 
shadow fell in the wood. 

To the grave by the side of my fathers they'll 
carry me soon away. 

Then I'll go to a higher school than the one 
I've seen to-day ; 

Where the Master of masters tcachcth — - 
where the scholars never grow old — 

From glory to glory I'll climb to the beauti- 
ful college of gold. 

JOHN II . YATES. 



^^^= ^ — ^ > 

GRANPMOTHER'S PATCHWORK, 



.ir 




k^ GENEROUS basket piled to the brim 
With odds and ends so quaint and 
queer, 

Bright from the past, or age-worn and 
dim; 
Foi vhey're gathered away from year to year. 

As over them all her fancies rove — 

These scraps of garments from friends and 
kin — 

Like faces they seem which appear in a dream; 
Ah, there's much unseen of life and love 

With grandmother's patchwork knitted in. 

For each has some precious story to tell 
To the dear old eyes reading them o'er ; 

A tale of its own, that she knows full well. 
Borne back to the hallowed days of yore. 

The children will crowd about her knee, 
With eager ear for each history ; 

These old-time relics which oft they see 
Are full of meaning and mystery. 

They know just which is the piece of pink 
Their father wore — ^her baby John ; 

The old lady smiles ; " Only to think 
How sweet and cunning he looked with it 
on." 

And one, they know, is all upon earth 
To tell of the little girl who died ; 

How oft they have gazed, and hushed their 
mirth, 
And over its tender story sighed ! 

And here is something that's handed down 
To tell what she in her prime has done ; 

The fine checked linen of blue and brown — 
The piece she "colored, and wove, and 
spun." 

There's Willie's apron, and mother's dress ; 

And the soldier-coat of brother Ben, 
Who marched away from each loved caress, 

But, alas ! did not march home again. 

This, you know, is a piece of the gown 

Which grandmother wore on her wedding- 
day ; 

The children spread it reverently down — 
" Please teA us about it again," they say. 



For that is the tale they love the best — 
How she started out on her bridal tour 

To find a home in the great, wild West, 

WTiere the wolves came howling around bar 
door. 

How they almost starved for the lack of food^' 
Then swam the ford for a bit of corn ; 

How they tracked the deer through the path- 
less wood, 
And o'er the hills in the purple morn. 

Then she sees herself with rose-wreathed brow, 
In bridal robes a young girl fair ; 

The silver that lies on her forehead now, 
In long dark ringlets of silken hair. 

If, in her dreams, her dim eyes shed. 
Over her needle, sometimes a tear, 

'Tis not in sadness ; but joy instead. 
That God is so good, and heaven so near. 

So over them all her fancies rove — 
These scraps of garments from friends and 
kin — 

For there's much unseen of life and love 
With grandmother's patchwork quilted in. 

ADELE MACDONALD. 



AN OLD MAN'S IDYL. 

\Y the waters of li'ie we sat together. 
Hand in hand, in the golden days 
'Of the beautiful early summer weather, 
When skies were purple and breath 
was praise. 
When the heart kept tune to the carol of 
birds. 
And the birds kept tune to the songs which 
ran 
Through shimmer of flowers on grassy swardsj 
And trees with voices ^olian. 

By the rivers of life we walked together, 

I and my darling, unafraid ; 
And lighter than any linnet's feather 

The burdens of being on us weighed ; 
And Love's sweet miracles o'er us threw 

Mantles of joy outlasting time, 
And up from the rosy morrows grew 

A sound that seemed like a marriage chime. 



66 



AN OLD MAN'S IDYL. 



tn the gardens of Life we strayed together, 

And the luscious apples were ripe and red, 
A.nd the languid lilac and honeyed heather 

Swooned with the fragrance which they 
shed: 
And under the trees the angel walked, 

And up in the air a sense of wings 
Awed us tenderly while we talked 

Softly in sacred communings. 

In the meadows of Life we strayed together, 

Watching the waving harvests grow, 
And under the benison of the Father 

Our hearts, like the lambs, skipped to and 
fro; 
And the cowslips hearing our low replies, 

Broidered fairer the emerald banks, 
And glad tears shone in the daisies' eyes, 

And the timid violet glistened thanks. 

WTio was with us, and what was round us, 

Neither myself nor my darling guessed ; 
Only we knew that something crowned us 

Out from the heavens with crowns of rest ; 
Only we knew that something bright 

Lingered lo\dngly where we stood. 
Clothed with the incandescent light 

Of something higher than humanhood. 



Oh, the riches love doth inherit I 

Oh, the alchemy which doth change 
Dross of bod^ and dregs of spirit 

Lito sanctities rare and strange ! 
My flesh is feeble, and dry, and old. 

My darling's beautiful hair is gray ; 
But our elixir and precious gold 

Laugh at the footsteps of decay. 

Harms of the world have come unto ua, 

Cups of sorrow we yet shall drain : 
But we have a secret which doth show us, 

Wonderful rainbows in the rain, 
And we hear the tread of the years move by, 

And the sun is setting behind the hills ; 
But my darling does not fear to die, 

And I am happy in what God wills. 

So we sit by our household fires together, 

Dreaming the dreams of long ago ; 
Then it was balmy, sunny weather. 

And now the valleys are laid in snow. 
Icicles hang from the slippery eaves, 

The wind blows cold — 'tis growing late ; 
Well, well! we have garnered all our sheaves, 

I and my darling, and we wait. 

RICHARD REALF. 



THE FAST MAIL, 



grandmother's opinion. 



▼f ETTERS? Four times a day, 
liy| And the postman never gets tired, 
'^^ A rappin' an' tappin' an' handin' 'em 
in — 

Aye, it's for that he is hired , 
Susan an' Eleanor watchin', 

An' allers they've time to stop, 
Whatever they're doin' to read 'em — 

Letters, fresh from the shop. , 

A letter's no consequence now. 

You heerd from Jonathan's wife, 
Ye tell me, to-day? What then? 

Ye hear every week o' your life, 
An' she at t'other end o' the 

Continent. I want to know 
Where s/ie gets the stuff to put in 'em; 

That's what bothers me so. 

A letter's no consequence now. 
They say that there's millions a day 



A flyin' hither an' yon, 

Thick as the robins in May ; 

A flyin' hither and yon, 
Like the snowflakes out o' the sky, 

An' meltin' away as quick — 
Gone with the breath o' a sigh. 

I tell you when I was young— 

A slip o' a thing like Sue — 
When this faded hair was brown. 

An' these dimmin' eyes were blue, 
An' up in the mountain land 

Your gran'ther was courtin' me, 
A letter was worth its weight — 

Worth waitin' a bit to see. 

Writ M'ith a strong quill pen, an* 
Writ from a thoughtful heart, 

Not flashed from a pciint o' steel, 
As sharp an' cold as a dart ; 

An* it told the neighborhood news, 



67 



THE FAST MAIL, 



Whose names had been called in church, 
"U^iose barn had been sot on fire, 
Whos*^ will folks were tr^in' to search. 

It began wirh an " Honored Sir," 

Or a '-Much Eespected Miss," 
An' it didn't dare allude. 

Even distantly to a kiss ; 
But it hoped it found you well, 

An' it spoke in guarded phrase, 
An' a solemn sort o' style, 

Like the minister, when he prays. 

'*' Formal an' frigid/' Susan? 

Is that what you're pleased to say? 
Let me have my word, my dear, 

My time is passin' away 
Before these fast-mail days — 

Oh, you needn't begin to blush ! 
Neither males nor females, child, 

Were given to so much gush. 

Eobert, he went to the pines one 
Spell — it was bitter cold — 



Oh. those hunter-men were giants, 
Believe me, stalwart an" bold ; 

He was six months gone, an' I only 
Had one letter all that time, 

An' I kep' it safe in my Bible, 
An' lamed it off like rhyme. 

What's that ? the postman again, 

A rappin' an' tappin' ? Pray 
What is Willie a writin' for ? 

Two letter from him to-day. 
Is it Katie is sick ? Scarlet fever ? 

Dear lamb, I'm afraid, I'm afraid; 
I have set my heart on my love, 

On the darling, the sweet httle maid. 

We'll hear once more before night, 

Oh, thanks to the Lord for His ways. 
They are better, for some things, now. 

Than they were in my early days. 
"When your soul is dark with suspense, 

And your cheek with fear turns pale. 
Then you lift up a song o' praise 

For the hope o' the good Fast Mail. 

MARGARET E. SANGSTE] 



AN OLD MAN'S VALENTINE, 



((p(R'E me a Valentine, Youth"— 

And the old man's cheeks were aglow. 



^ 



Though a staff was in his hand 



And his hair was white as snow — 
"Give me a Valentine — something nice; 
The girl I love is beyond a price. 

"One of the old-fashioned kind, 
All sweet -s^ith the perfume of flowers ; 

With dear little simple rhymes, 
And two lovers in rosy bowers ; 

With a timid hope and a thought of tears — 

That has been my style for fifh.' years. 

"This one will suit her, I think, 
Her eyes, as these blossoms, are blue. 

White as these hlies her hair. 

Like this dove, she is tender and true. 

Just such a Valentine — smiles and fears — 

As I've sent her now for fifty years. 

** Xo need for laughing, young men ! 

But laugh when you're seventy years old, 
[f the girl you love to-day 

Is beloved of you seventy-fold ; 
Laugh if you've had. through fifty years' strife, 
Che wonderful joy of a faithful wife. 



*' Send her a Valentine, then, 
As I'm sending my viife to-day ; 

Send her one everj' year, 

For that is a true Lover's way. 

God give you, young men, a wife like mine. 

And you'll send her, I know, a Valentine ! " 

MARY AMELIA BURR. 



BOYS AND GIRLS. 

WHEX we are young our boys are sweet, 
They climb our knees and lie at oui 
feet; 
T\Tien we are old they are hard to please, 
Cold as the rock and wild as the breeze; 
They kiss us kindly and speak us fair, 
But we know their hearts are otherwhere. 
Oh, my son's my son till he gets him a wife. 
But my daughter's my daughter all my life. 

When we are young our days are bright. 
And full of hope from morn till night ; 
When we are old we sit alone, 
And think of pleasant days long gone, 
"VMien the house was full of the childi-eu's noise, 
The wilful girls and naughty boys. 

Oh, my son's my son till he gets him a wife, 
But mv daughter's mv daughter all my life* 



68 



^ 9y ^ ^ . 

GRANDFATHER'S REVERIE 



»- 



-♦-v- 



•^^^H^^*" -^^s^ 



GRANDFATHER is old. His back 
is bent. In tlie street he sees 
crowds of men looking dreadfully 
young, and walking fearfully swift. 
He wonders where all the o/c/ folks are. 
Once when a boy, he could not find peo- 
ple young enough for him, and sidled up 
to any young stranger he met on Sundays, 
wondering why God made the world so 
old. Now he goes to Commencement to 
see his grandson take his degree, and is 
astonished at the youth, of the audience. 
" This is new," he says : " it did not use 
to be so fifty years ago." At meeting, the 
minister seems surprisingly young, and 
the audience young. He looks round, 
and is astonished that there are so few 
venerable heads. The audience seem not 
decorous. They come in late, and hurry 
off early, clapping the doors after them 
with irreverent bang. But grandfather is 
decorous, well mannered, early in his 
seat; if jostled, he jostles not again; 
elbowed, he returns it not ; crowded, he 
thinks no evil. He is gentlemanly to 
the rude, obliging to the insolent and 
vulgar ; for grandfather is a gentleman ; 
not puffed up with mere money, but 
edified with well grown manliness. Time 
has dignified his good manners. 

It is night. The family are all abed. 
Grandfather sits by his old-fashioned fire. 
He draws his old-fashioned chair nearer 
to the hearth. On the stand which his 
mother gave him are the candlesticks, 
also of old time. The candles are three 
quarters burnt down; the fire on the 
hearth also is low. He has been thought- 
ful all day, talking half to himself, chant- 
ing a bit of verse, humming a snatch of 
an old tune. He kissed his pet grand- 
daughter more tenderly than common, 
before she went to bed. He takes out of 
his bosom a little locket; nobody ever 
sees it Therein are two little tv/ists of 



hair. As Grandfather looks at them, the 
outer twist of hair becomes a whole head 
of ambrosial curls. He remembers stolen 
interviews, meetings by moonlight. He 
remembers how sweet the evening star 
looked, and how he laid his liand on an- 
other's shoulder, and said, " You are my 
evening star." 

The church-clock strikes the midnight 
hour. He looks in his locket again. The 
other twist is the hair of his first-born 
son. At this same hour of midnight, 
once, many years ago, he knelt and prayed, 
when the long agony was over — '' My 
God, I thank thee that, though I am a 
father, I am still a husband, too ! What 
am I, that unto me life should be given 
and another spared ! " Now he has chil 
dren, and children's children, the joy of 
his old age. But for many a year his 
wife has looked to him from beyond the 
evening star. She is still the evening star 
herself, yet more beautiful ; a star that 
never sets; not mortal wife now, but 
angel. 

The last stick on his andirons snaps 
asunder, and falls outward. Two faintly 
smoking brands stand there. Grand- 
father lays them together, and they flame 
up ; the two smokes are united in one 
flame. "Even so let it be in heaven," 
says Grandfather. 

THEODORE PARKER. 
(From his sermon on " Old Age.") 



MOVING ONWARD. 



^^/An he moves to meet his latter end, 
^-^ Angels around befriending virtue's 
friend ; 
Sinks to the grave with unperceivcd decay, 
While resignation gently slopes the way; 
And, all his prospects brightening to the Lust, 
His heaven commences ere the world is past." 

OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



69 




«JPP GOJ.PPJI WPPPIJIG.s^ 

-^^1^ — 




The German custom of obsen'ing a festival called the Silver Wedding, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of marriage, 
and a Golden ^yetl(ling on the fiftieth anniversary, have now become familiar to us by their frequent observance in 
this conntry. The following description of such an anniversary in Sweden is from the graceful pen of Fredrika 
Bremer, in her work entitled " The Neighbors." 



f II ERE was a patriarch and wife, 
and only to see that ancient, ven- 
erable couple made the heart re- 
joice. Tranquility w^as upon 
their brows, cheerful wisdom on their lips, 
and in their glance one read love and 
peace. For above half a century this 
ancient couple have inhabited the same 
house and the same rooms. There they 
were married, and there they are soon to 
celebrate their golden nuptials. The 
rooms are unchanged, the furniture the 
same it has been for fifty years ; but 
everything is clean, comfortable and 
friendly, as in a one-year-old dwelling, 
though much more simple than the houses 
of our time. I know not what spirit of 
peace and grace it is which breathes upon 
me in this house ! Ah ! in this house fifty 
years have passed as a beautiful day. 
Here a virtuous couple have lived, loved, 
and W'Orked together. Many a pure joy 
has blossomed here ; and when sorrow 
?ame, it was not bitter, for the fear of 
God and mutual love illuminated the 
dark clouds. Hence has emanated many 
a noble deed, and many a beneficent in- 
fluence. Happy children grew up. They 
gathered strength from the example of 
their parents, went out into the world, 
built for themselves houses, and were 
good and fortunate. Often do they re- 
turn to the 23a rental home, to bless and to 
be blessed. 

A long life of integrity, industry, and 
beneficence has impressed itself on the 
father's expansive forehead, and on his 
frank, benevolent deportment. His fig- 



ure is yet firm, and his gait steady. The 
lofty crown is bald, but the venerable 
head is surrounded by silver-white locks, 
like a garland. 'No one in the city sees 
this head without bowing in friendly and 
reverential greeting. The whole country, 
as well as the city, loves him as their bene- 
factor, and venerates him as their patri- 
arch. He has created his own fortune, 
and sacrificed much for the public good; 
and notwithstanding much adversity and 
loss, he has never let his spirit sink. In 
mind and conversation he is still cheerful, 
full of jest and sprightliness. But for 
several years his sight has failed him 
greatly ; and at times the gout troubles 
his temper. But an angel moves round 
the couch to which suffering confines him; 
his feet are moved and enwrajiped by soft 
white hands ; the sick-chamber and the 
countenance of the old man grow bright 
before his orphan grandchild, Serena. 

In the aged countenance and bowed 
form of the mother you see an old woman. 
But sliow her something beautiful, speak 
to her of something worthy of love, and 
her mien, her smile, beams from the eter- 
nal youth which dwells immortal in her 
sensitive spirit. Then you involuntarily 
exclaim, " What beautiful age ! ^' If you 
sit near her, and look into her mild, pious 
eyes, you feel as if you could open your 
whole soul, and believe in every word she 
speaks, as in the Gospel. She has lived 
through much and experienced much; 
yet she still says she will live in order to 
learn. Truly we must all learn from her. 
Her tone and manner betoken true polite* 



70 



THE GOLDEN WEDDING. 



ness, and much knowledge of life. She 
alone has educated her childen, and she 
still thinks and acts both for children and 
children's children. 

Will you see in one little circumstance 
a miniature picture of the whole ? Every 
evening the old man himself roasts two 
apples; every everi;,^, Avhen they are 
done, he gives one of thom to his " hand- 
some old wife/' as he calls her. Thus for 
fifty years have they divided everything 
with each other. 

And now the day for their Golden Wed- 
ding has arrived. The whole city and 
country take an interest in it. It is as if 
all the people in the place were related to 
the old Dahls. The young people come 
from east and west, — Dahls here, Dahls 
there, brave men and handsome children. 
A swarm of cousins encounter one an- 
other at every step. Brotherships and 
friendships are concluded. 

If you wish to learn the true value of 
marriage, — if you wish to see what this 
union may be for two human hearts, and 
for life, — then observe, not the wedded 
ones in their honeymoon, nor by the cra- 
dle of their first child ; not at a time 
'vhen novelty and hope yet throwamoru- 
i ng glory over the young and new-born 
world of home ; but survey them, rather, 
in the more remote years of manhood, 
when they have proved the world and 
each other ; when they have conquered 
many an error, and many a temptation, 
in order to become only the more united 
to each other ; when labors and cares are 
theirs ; when, under the burden of tie 
day, as well as in hours of repose, they 
support one another, and find that they 
are sufficient for each other. Or survey 
them still farther in life. See them ar- 
rived at that period when the world, with 
all its changes and agitations, rolls far 



away from them; when every object 
around becomes more dim to them ; when 
their house is still ; when they are soli- 
tary, yet they stand there hand in hand, 
and each reads in the other's eyes only 
love : when they, with the same memoriee 
and the same hopes, stand on the bounda- 
ries of another life, into which they 
are prepared to enter, of all desires 
retaining only the one that they may 
die on the same day. Yes, then behold 
them ! And, on that account, turn now 
to the patriarchs, and to their Golden 
Wedding. 

There is, indeed, something worth cel- 
ebrating, thought I, when I awoke in the 
morning. The sun seemed to be of the 
same opinion, for it shone brightly on the 
snow-covered roof of the aged pair. I 
wrapped myself in my cloak, and w^ent 
forth to carry my congratulations to the 
old people, and to see if I could be help- 
ful to Serena. The aged couple sat in 
the ante-room, clad in festal attire, each in 
their own easy-chair. A large bouquet 
of fresh flowers and a hymn-book were 
on the table. The sun shone in through 
snow-white curtains. It was peaceful 
and cheerful in the room. The patriarch 
appeared, in the sunny light, as if sur- 
rounded by a glory. I offered my con- 
gratulations with emotion, and was era- 
braced by them, as by a father and mother. 
^' A lovely day, Madame Werner," said 
the old gentleman, as he looked toward 
the window. " Yes, beautiful indeed," I 
answered. "It is the feast of love and 
truth on the earth." The two old peo- 
ple smiled, and clasped each other's hands. 

There was great commotion in the hall, 
caused by the arrival of troops of chil- 
dren and grandchildren, who all, in holi- 
day garb, and with joyous looks, poured 
in to bring their wishes of happiness to 
the venerable parents. It was charming 



71 



THE GOLDEN WEDDING, 



to see these groups of lovely children 
cling round the old people, like young 
saplings round aged stems. It was charm- 
ing to see the little rosy mouths turned 
up to kiss, the little arms stretch- 
ing to embrace them, and to hear the 
clamor of loving words and exulting 
voices. 

I found Serena in the kitchen, sur- 
rounded by people, and dealing out viands ; 
for to-day the Dahls made a great distri- 
bution of food and money to the poor. 
Serena accompanied the gifts with friendly 
looks and words, and won blessings for 
her grandparents. 

At eight in the evening, the wedding 
guests began to assemble. In the street 
where they lived the houses were illumi- 
nated in honor of the patriarchs, and 
lamps burned at the corners. A great 
number of people, with glad countenances, 
wandered up and down the street, in the 
still, mild winter evening. The house of 
the Dahls was thrown into the shade by 
the brilliancy of those in the neighbor- 
hood; but there was light within. 

Serena met me at the door of the saloon. 
She wore a white garland in her light- 
brown hair. How charming she was in 
her white dress, with her kindly blue 
eyes, her pure brow, and the heavenly 
smile on her lips ! She was so friendly, 
so amiable, to everybody ! Friends and 
relatives arrived ; the rooms became filled. 
They drank tea, ate ices, and so on ; and 
then there fell at once a great silence. The 
two old people seated themselves in two 
easy-chairs, which stood near each other 
in the middle of the saloon, on a richly 
embroidered mat. Their children and 
their children's children gathered in a 
half-circle round them. A clergyman of 
noble presence stepped forward, and pro- 
nounced an oration on the beauty and 



holiness of marriage. He concluded with 
a reference to the life of the venerable 
pair, which was in itself a better sermon 
on the excellence of marriage, for the 
human heart, and for life, than was his 
speech, though what he said was true and 
touching. There was not a dry eye in the 
whole company. All were in a solemn, 
affectionate mood. 

Meantime, preparations for the festival 
were completed in the second story, to 
which the guests ascended. Here tableaux 
were presented, whose beauty and grace 
exceeded everything I had anticipated. 
The last one consisted of a well-arranged 
group of all the descendants of the 
Dahls, during the exhibition of which 
a chorus was sung. The whole exhibi- 
tion gave great and general pleasure. 
When the chorus ceased, and the curtain 
fell, the doors of the dance-saloon flew 
open ; a dazzling light streamed thence, 
and lively music set all the hearts and 
feet of the young people in lively 
motion. 

We sat talking pleasantly together, till 
supper was served, on various little tables, 
in three rooms. Lagman Hok raised his 
glass, and begged permission to drink a 
toast. All were attentive. Then, fixing 
a mild, confident gaze on the patriarchs, 
he said, in a low voice : " Flowers and 
Harps were woven into the mat on which 
our honored friends this evening heard 
the words of blessing pronounced over 
them. They are the symbols of Happi- 
ness and Harmony; and these are the 
Penates of this house. That they surround 
you in this festive hour, venerable friends, 
we cannot regard as an accident. I seemed 
to hear them say, ' During your union you 
have so welcomed and cherished us, that 
we are at home here, and can never for- 
sake you. Your age shall be like your 
youth!'" 



72 



THE WORN WEDDING RING. 



YOUR wedding ring wears thin, dear wife. 
Ah summers not a few, 
Since I put it on your finger first, have 
passed o'er me and you. 
And, love, what changes we have seen ! what 

cares and pleasures too ! 
Since you became my own dear wife, when 
this old ring was new. 

O blessings on that happy day, the happiest 

of my life, 
When, thanks to God, your low, sweet " Yes" 

made you my loving wife! 
Your heart will say the same, I know ; that 

day's as dear to you, 
The day that made me yours, dear wife, when 

this old ring was new. 

How well do I remember now your young, 

sweet face that day ! 
How fair you were, how dear you were, my 

tongue could hardly say ; 
Nor how I doted on you. Ah, how proud 

I was of you ! 
But did I love you more than now, when this 

old ring was new ? 

No ! No ! no fairer were you then, than at this 

hour, to me ; 
And dear as life to me this day, how could 

you dearer be ? 
As sweet your face might be that day as now 

it is, 't is true ; 
But did I know your heart as well, when this 

old ring was new ? 

partner of my gladness, wife, what care, 
what grief, is there 

For me you would not bravely face ? with me 
you would not share ? 

0, what a weary want had every day, if want- 
ing you I 

Wanting the love that God made mine when 
this old ring was new ! 

Years bring fresh links to bind us, wife, — 

small voices that are here, 
Small faces round our fire that make their 

mother's yet more dear, 
Small, loving hearts, your care each day 

makes yet more like to you, 
More like the loving heart made mine when 

this old ring was new. 



And, blessed be God, all He has given are 

with us yet : around 
Our table every little life lent to us still is found; 
Though cares we've known,with hopeful hearts 

the worst we've struggled through ; 
Blessed be His name for all His love since 

this old ring was new. 

The past is dear ; its sweetness still our mem- 
ories treasure yet ; 

The griefs we've borne, together borne, we 
would not now forget. 

Whatever, wife, the future brings, heart unto 
heart still true. 

We'll share, as we have shared all else, since 
this old ring was new. 

And if God spare us, 'mongst our sons and 

daughters to grow old, 
We know His goodness will not let your heart 

or mine grow cold. 
Your aged eyes will see in mine all they've 

still shown to you ; 
And mine in yours all thej^ have seen since 

this old ring was new. 

And 0, when death shall come at last to bid 

me to my rest. 
May I die looking in those eyes, and resting 

on that breast ! 
O, may my parting gaze be blessed with the 

dear sight of you ! 
Of those fond eyes, — fond as they were when 

this old ring was new. 

W. C. BENNETT. 



THE GOOD OLD GRANDMOTHER. 

WHO DIED AGED EIGHTY. 

SOFTLY wave the silver hair 
From off that aged brow 1 
That crown of glory, worn so long, 
A fitting crown is now. 

Fold reverently the weary hands. 

That toiled so long and well ; 
And while your tears of sorrow fall, 

Let sweet thanksgivings swell. 

That life-work, stretching o'er long years, 

A varied web has been ; 
With silver strands by sorrow wrought, 

And sunny gleams between. 

These silver hairs stole softly on. 
Like flakes of falling snow, 



73 



THE GOOD OLD GRANDMOTHER. 



That wrap the green earth lovingly, 
When autumn breezes blow. 

Each silver hair, each wrinkle there, 
Records some good deed done ; 

Some flowers she cast along the way, 
Some spark from love's bright sun. 

How bright she always made her home I 

It seemed as if the floor 
Was always flecked with spots of sun, . 

And barred with brightness o'er. 

The very falling of her step 

Made music as she went ; 
A loving song was on her lip, 

The song of full content. 

And now, in later years, her word 

Has been a blessed thing 
In many a home, where glad she saw 

Her children's children spring. 

Her widowed life has happy been 
With brightness born of heaven; 

So pearl and gold in drapery fold 
The sunset couch at even. 

O gently fold the weary hands 
That toiled so long and well ; 

The spirit rose to angel bands, 
When ofi" earth's mantle fell. 

She's safe within her Father's house. 

Where many mansions be ; 
O pray that thus such rest may come, 

Dear heart, to thee and me ! 



CRANDMOTHER-A PORTRAIT. 

YZl FACE on which the years lie gently, 
J -^ Softening ever as they go, 

As a stone is smoothed and brightened 
By the river's ceaseless flow. 

Eyes to which tears are no strangers. 

For she often tears hath shed 
Over burdens born by others, 

Which she fain would bear instead. 

And her hair is silver woven. 
As though light were falling down 

From the city she is nearing. 
Just foieshadowing the crown. 

And her feet, they ne'er seem weary 
When they other's steps can spare ; 

And her hands are very busy 
Ligntening others' load of care. 



And her smile, it cometh gently. 
Like the moonlight falling clear 

On some still, sequestered Avater, 
Pure and sparkling, heaven near. 

And her thoughts, they seem too holy, 

And her gentle love too pure, 
To see crime and guilt in others 

Unless seeing, she can cure. 

Oh, dear heart; the toilsome journey 

lN"ow is mostly overpast; 
And the glimpse of heaven you give us 

Will be part of heaven at last. g. e. 



DIE LIEBE WINTERT NIGHT." 



"N' 



[0 winter-time in love ! " 

The little child we kissed in years agone 
It went to sleep one eve, 
And woke not when the morning touched its 
cheek, 
Ne'er woke again to grieve. 
It wears the wild-rose tint in its soft cheek. 

It keeps its rings of gold 
Above the pure- veined forehead, white as snow; 
It ne'er to us grew old. 

" No winter-time in love ! " 
The earth wears difi'erent blossoms every 
month. 

And it is even so 
With her who sits beside me, in her heart 

New graces bloom and grow. 
She is more patient than in years agone ; 

In place of the lush rose, 
Deep-hearted lilies over *' pearls " of peace 

On quiet waters close. 

*' No winter-time in love ! " 
One hinted gently of the white hoarfrost 

That gleamed upon our hair : 
We smiled as one who keeps his secret well. 

Oh, heart,, how young you are ! 
How full of tender pulses, leaping quick 

At thrill of any bird. 
And answering to the patter of small feet. 

" No winter-time in love ! " 
We call it winter when some cheek is cold. 

Some cheek we loved to press ; 
Only a moment, then we lift our eyes 

And tenderly we bless 
Th' one who, walking in the garden of the heart, 

Made an eternal spring — 
There is no winter and there cannot be 






After love's entering. 



ADELAIDE STOUT. 



74 



-^-{^ fl SjPOr^Y POr^ Gf^ANDPAfPHEI^. /{- ^ 



¥W^ 




NCE upon a time, 
a good many 
years ago, there 
was a traveller, 
and he set out 
upon a journey. 
It was a magic 
journey, and was 
to seem very long 
when he began it, and very short when he 
got half-way through. 

He travelled along a rather dark path 
for some little time, without meeting any- 
thing, until at last he came to a beautiful 
child. So he said to the child, " What do 
you here ? " And the child said, " I am 
always at play. Come and play with me!" 
So, he played with that child the whole 
day long, and they were very merry. The 
sky was so blue, the sun was so bright, 
the water was so sparkling, the leaves 
were so green, the flowers were so lovely, 
and they heard such singing-birds, and 
saw so many butterflies, that everything 
was beautiful. This was in fine weather. 
When it rained, they loved to watch the 
1 Jailing drops and to smell the fresh scents. 
When it blew, it was delightful to listen 
to the wind, and fancy what it said, as it 
came rushing from its home — where 
was that, they wondered ! — whistling and 
howling, and driving the clouds before it, 
bending the trees, rumbling in the chim- 
neys, shaking the house, and making the 
sea roar in fury. But when it snowed, 
that was the best of all; for they liked 
nothing so well as to look up at the white 
flakes falling fast and thick, like down 
from the breasts of millions of white 
birds; and to see how smooth and deep 
the drift was, and to listen to the hush 
upon the paths and roads. 



They had plenty of the finest toys in 
the world, and the most astonishing pic- 
ture-books, all a])out scimitars and slippers 
and turbans, and dwarfs and giants, and 
genii, and fairies, and blue-beards and 
bean-stalks, and riches, and caverns and 
forests, and Valentines and Orsons : and 
all new and all true. 

But one day, of a sudden, the traveller 
lost the child. He called to him over and 
over again, but got no answer. So, he 
went upon his road, and went on for a 
little while without meeting anything, 
until at last he came to a handsome boy. 
So, he said to the boy, "WTiat do you 
here?" And the boy said, "I am 
always learning. Come and learn with 
me." 

So he learned with that boy about Ju- 
piter and Juno, and the Greeks and the 
Komans, and I don't know what, and 
learned more than I could tell — or he 
either ; for he soon forgot a great deal of 
it. But they were not always learning; 
they had the merriest games that ever 
were played. They rowed upon the river 
in summer, and skated on the ice in win- 
ter ; they were active afoot, and active on 
horseback; at cricket, and all games at 
ball ; at prisoners' base, hare and hounds, 
follow my leader, and more sports than I 
can think of; nobody could beat them. 
They had holidays, too, and Twelfth cakes, 
and parties where they danced all night 
till midnight, and re;il theatres, where 
they saw palaces of real gold and silver 
rise out of the real earth, and saw all the 
wonders of the world at once. As to 
friends, they had such dear friends, and so 
many of them, that I want the time to 
reckon them up. They were all young, 
like the handsome boy, and were never to 



75 



A STORY FOR GRANDFATHER. 



be strange to one another all their lives 
through. 

Still, one day, in the midst of all these 
pleasures, the traveller lost the boy, as he 
had lost the child, and, after calling on 
him in vain, went on upon his journey. 
So he went on for a little while without 
seeing anything, until at last he came to a 
young man. So, he said to the young 
man, "What do you here?'' And the 
young man said, "I am always in love. 
Come and love with me." 

So, he went away with that young man, 
and presently they came to one of the 
prettiest girls that ever was seen — just like 
Fanny in the corner there — and she had 
eyes like Fanny, and hair like Fanny, and 
dimples like Fanny's, and she laughed and 
colored just as Fanny does while I am 
talking about her. So, the young man 
fell in love directly — just as Somebody I 
won't mention, the first time he came here, 
did with Fanny. Well ! He was teased 
sometimes — just as Somebody used to be 
by Fanny ; and they quarrelled sometimes 
— just as Somebody and Fanny used to 
quarrel; and they made it up, and sat in 
the dark, and wrote letters every day, 
and never were happy asunder, and were 
always looking out for one another, and 
pretending not to, and were engaged at 
Christmas time, and sat close to one 
another by the fire, and were going to be 
married very soon — all exactly like Some- 
body I won't mention and Fanny ! 

But the traveller lost them one day, as 
he had lost the rest of his friends, and, 
after calling to them to come back, w^hich 
they never did, went on upon his journey. 
So, he went on for a little while without 
seeing anything, until at last he came to a 
middle-aged gentleman. So, he said to 
the gentleman, "What are you doing 
here?" And his answer was, "I am 
always busy. Come and be busy with me ! " 



So, then he began to be very busy witli 
that gentleman, and they went on through 
the wood together. The whole journey 
was through a wood, only it had been 
open and green at first, like a wood in 
spring ; and now began to be thick and 
dark, like a wood in summer; some of the 
little trees that had come out earliest w^ere 
even turning brown. The gentleman was 
not alone, but had a lady of about the 
same age with him, who was his wife : and 
they had children, who were with them, 
too. So, they all went on together through 
the wood, cutting down the trees, and 
making a path through the branches and 
the fallen leaves, and carrying burdens, 
and working hard. 

Sometimes they came to a long green 
avenue that opened into deeper woods. 
Then they would hear a very little distant 
voice crying, " Father, father, I am another 
child ! Stop for me ! " And presently 
they would see a very little figure, grow- 
ing larger as it came along, running to 
join them. When it came up, they all 
crowded round it, and kissed and wel- 
comed it ; and then they all went on to- 
gether. 

Sometimes they came to several avenues 
at once; and then they all stood still, and 
one of the children said, "Father, I am 
going to sea " ; and another said, " Father, 
I am going to India " ; and another, " Fa- 
ther, I am going to seek my fortune where 
I can"; and another, "Father, I am going 
to heaven ! " So, with many tears at part- 
ing, they went, solitary, down those ave- 
nues, each child upon its way; and the 
child who went to heaven, rose into the 
golden air and vanished. 

Whenever these partings happened, the 
traveller looked at the gentleman, and saw 
him glance up at the sky above the trees, 
Avhere the day was beginning to decline, 
and the sunset to come on. He saw, too, 



76 



A STORY FOR GRANDFATHER. 



that his hair was turning gray. But they 
never could rest long, for they had their 
journey to perform, and it was necessary 
for them to be always busy. 

At last, there had been so many part- 
ings that there were no children left, and 
only the traveller, the gentleman, and the 
lady went upon their way in company. 
And now the wood was yellow ; and now 
brown ; and the leaves, even of the forest- 
trees, began to fall. 

So they came to an avenue that was 
darker than the rest, and were pressing 
forward on their journey without looking 
down, when the lady stopped. 

" My husband,^' said the lady, '' I am 
called." 

They listened, and they heard a voice a 
long way down the avenue say, " Mother, 
mother ! '' 

It was the voice of the first child who 
had said, " I am going to heaven ! " and 
the father said, "I pray not yet. The 
sunset is very near. I pray not yet." 

But the voice cried, *' Mother, mother !" 
without minding him, though his hair was 
now quite white, and tears were on his 
face. 

Then, the mother, who was already 
drawn into the shade of the dark avenue, 
and moving away with her arms still 
around his neck, kissed him and said, 
" My dearest, I am summoned, and I go !" 
And she was gone. And the traveller and 
he were left alone together. 

And they went on and on together, un- 
til they came to very near the end of the 
wood; so near, that they could see the 
eunset shining red before them through 
\he trees. 

Yet, once more, while he broke his way 
among the branches, the traveller lost his 
friend. He called and called, but there 
was no reply, and when he passed out of 
the wood and saw the peaceful sun going 



down upon a wide purple prospect, he 
came to an old man sitting upon a fallen 
tree. So, he said tc the old man, '^ What 
do you here ? " And the old man said, 
with a calm smile, '' I am always remem- 
bering. Come and remember with me." 

So, the traveller sat down by the side 
of the old man, face to face w^th the serene 
sunset; and all his friends came softly 
back and stood around him. The beauti- 
ful child, the handsome boy, the young 
man in love, the father, mother, and chil- 
dren : every one of them was there, and 
he had lost nothing. So, he loved them all, 
and was kind and forbearing with them 
all, and was always pleased to watch them 
all, and they all honored and loved him. 
And I think the traveller n^ust be your- 
self, dear grandfather, because it is what 
you do to us, and what we do to you. 

CHARLES DICKENS. 



DREAMIKa IT FOURSCORE. 



HE sits in the gathering 
twilight 
In her well-worn rocking- 
chair, 
With the snow of life's long 
winter 
In the meshes of her hair. 
She dreams of the little 
children 
Who left her long ago, 
And listens for their toot- 
steps 
With the longing mothers 
know. 



She hears them coming, coming ! 

And her heart is all elate 
At the patter of little footsteps 

Down by the garden gate. 
The clatter of children's voices 

Comes merrily to her ears, 
And she cries in her quivering treble, 

" You are late, my little dears ! " 




77 



DREAMING AT FOURSCORE. 



And then, they are here beside her 

As she had them long ago — 
Susie, and Ben, and Mary, 

And Ruthie, and little Joe. 
And her heart throbs high with rapture 

As each fond kiss is given, 
And the night is filled with music 

Sweet as her dreams of heaven. 

Such wonderful things they tell her! 

A nest in the apple-tree : 
And the robin gave them a scolding 

For climbing up to see ! 
A wee white lamb in the pasture — 

A wild rose on the hill^ 
And such a great ripe strawberry 

As Joe found by the mill ! 

She listens to all their prattle, 

Her heart abrim with rest. 
She's queen in a little kingdom, 

Each child a royal guest. 
Queen ? 'Tis an empty title ! 

More than a queen is she : 
Mother of young immortals 

Who gather at her knee. 



She brings their welcome supper, 

And they sit down at her feet 
Tired, and hungry, and happy, 

And she laughs to see them eat. 
Then she smooths the yellow tangles 

With a mother's patient hand. 
While she tells some wonderful story 

Of the children's fairy-land. 

Then the little knotted shoe-strings 

Are patiently untied, 
And the children in their night-gowns 

Kneel at their mother's side 
Their voices are low and sleepy 

Ere their simple prayers are said, 
And the good-night Iiiss is given 

By each waiting little bed. 

Then a quiet comes about her, 

Solemn and still and deep, 
And she says in her dreamy fancies, 

"The children are fast asleep." 
Yes, fast asleep, poor mother. 

In their beds so low and green, 
Daisies and clover blossom 

Each face and the sky between, 

EBEN E. REYFORD, 



^ 



OLD FOLKS AT HOME, 




t 



AY down upon de 

Swannee Ribber, 
Far, far away — 
/^ Dare's wha my heart is 
^^^. turning ebber — 

Dare's wha de old 
folks stay. 
All up and down de 
whole creation 
Sadly I roam ; 
Still longing for de old 
plantation, 
And for de old folks at home. 
All de world am sad and dreary 

Eb'ry where I roam ; 
Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary. 
Far from de old folks at home I 

All 'round de little farm I wander'd 

When I was young ; 
Den many happy days I squander'd — 

Many de songs I sung. 



When I was playing wid my brudder, 

Happy was I ; 
Oh, take me to my kind old mudder ! 
Dare let me live and die ! 

All de world am sad and dreary 

Eb'rywhere I roam ; 
Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary, 
Far from de old folks at home ! 

One little hut among de bushes — 

One dat I love — 
Still sadly to my mem'ry rushes. 

No matter where I rove. 
When will I see de bees a-humming 

All round de comb ? 
When will I hear de banjo turaming 
Down in my good old home ? 
All de world am sad and dreary 

Eb'rywhere I roam : 
Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary. 



Far from de old folks at honn 



.1 



STEPHEN C. FOSTER, 



78 



♦ V " A 4 




THE THREE WARNINGS. 



-4d 



r HE tree of deepest root 

is found 
Least willing still to quit 

the ground ; 
'Twas therefore said by 
ancient sages, 
That love of life in- 
creased with years 
So much, that in our lat- 
ter stages, 
When pains grow sharp and sickness rages, 

The greatest love of Ufe appears. 
This great affection to believe, 
Which all confess, but few perceive, 
If old assertions can't prevail, 
Be pleased to hear a modern tale. 

When sports went round, and all were gay, 
On neighbor Dodson's wedding-day 
Death called aside the jocund groom 
With him into another room, 
And, looking grave, "You must," says he, 
"Quit your sweet bride, and come with me." 
" With you ! and quit my Susan's side ? 
With you ! " the hapless husband cried; 
" Young as I am, 'tis monstrous hard ! 
Besides, in truth, I'm not prepared: 
My thoughts on other matters go; 
This is my wedding-day, you know." 

What more he urged I have not heard, 

His reasons could not well be stronger; 
So Death the poor delinquent spared. 

And left to live a little longer. 
Yet calling up a serious look. 
His hour-glass trembled while he spoke — 
" Neighbor," he said, " farewell ! no more 
Shall Death disturb your mirthful hour ; 
And further, to avoid aL blame 
Of cruelty upon my name. 
To give you time for preparation, 
And fit you for your future station, 
Three several warnings you shall have. 
Before you're summoned to the grave; 
Willing for once I'll quit my prey. 

And grant a kind reprieve, 
In hopes you'll have no more to say. 
But when I call again this way, 

Well pleased the world will leave." 



To these conditions both consented. 
And parted perfectly contented. 

What next the hero of our tale befell, 
How long he lived, how wise, how well, 
How roundly he pursued his course. 
And smoked his pipe, and stroked his horsC 

The willing muse shall tell : 
He chaffered then, he bought and sold, 
Nor once perceived his growing old, 

Nor thought of Death as near : 

His friends not false, his wife no shrew, 
Many his gains, his children few, 

He passed his hours in peace. 
But while he viewed his wealth increase, 
While thus along life's dusty road 
The beaten track content he trod. 
Old Time, whose haste no mortal spares, 
Uncalled, unheeded, unawares. 

Brought on his eightieth year. 
And now, one night, in musing mood. 

As all alone he sate, 
Tlie unwelcome messenger of Fate 

Once more before him stood. 

Half killed with anger and surprise, 
"So soon returned ! " Old Dodson cries. 
" So soon, d'ye call it ! " Death replies ; 
" Surely, my friend, j'ou're but in jest I 

Since I was here before 
'Tis six-and-thirty years at least, 

And you are now fourscore." 

"So much the worse," the clown rejoined; 
" To spare the aged would be kind : 
However, see your search be legal ; 
And your authority — is't regal ? 
Else you are come on a fool's errand. 
With but a secretary's warrant. 
Beside, you promised me three warnings, 
Which I have looked for nights and morningi; 
But for that loss of time and ease 
I can recover damages." 

" I know," cries Death, " that at the beet 
I seldom am a welcome guest; 
But don't be captious, friend, at least: 
I little thought you'd still be able 
To stump about your farm and stable : 



79 



THE THREE WARNINGS. 



Your years have run to a great length ; 
I wish you joy, though, of your strength ! " 

" Hold," says the farmer, " not so fast ! 
I have been lame these four years past." 

"And no great wonder/' Death replies : 
" However, you still keep your eyes ; 
And sure, to see one's loves and friends 
!For legs and arms would make amends." 

"Perhaps," says Dodson, " so it might, 
But latterly I've lost my sight." 

" This is a shocking tale, 'tis true ; 
But still there's comfort left for you : 
Each strives your sadness to amuse ; 
I warrant you hear all the news." 

" There's none," cries he ; "and if there were, 
I'm grown so deaf, I could not hear." 

"Nay, then," the spectre stern rejoined, 
*' These are unjustifiable yearnings : 

If you are lame and deaf and blind, 
You've had your three sufficient warnings ; 
So come along, no more we'll part," 
He said, and touched him with his dart. 
And now, Old Dodson, turning pale. 
Yields to his fate — so ends my tale. 

HESTER LYNCH THRALE. 

LETTER TO AH AGED PERSON. 

MUCH Honored Sie: — Grace, mercy, 
and peace be to you. I beseech 
you, sir, by the salvation of your 
precious soul, and the mercies of God, 
make good and sure work of your salva- 
tion, and try upon what ground-stone you 
have builded. Worthy and dear sir, if 
ye be upon sinking sand, a storm of death 
and a blast will loose Christ and you, and 
wash you off the rock ! Oh ! for the Lord's 
sake, look narrowly to the work. Read 
over your life with the light of God's day- 
light and sun. It is good to look to your 
compass and all you have need of ere you 
take shipping, for no wind can blow you 
back again. Remember, when the race is 
ended, and the flag either won or lost, and 
you are in the utmost circle and border 
of time, and put your foot within the 
march of eternity, all your good things of 
this short nightdream shall seem to you 
like the ashes of a blaze of thorns or 
straw, and your poor soul shall be crying. 



" Lodging, lodging, for God's sake !" Then 
shall your soul be more glad at one of 
your Lord's lovely smiles than if you had 
the charters of three worlds for all eternity. 
Let pleasures and gain, will and desires 
of this world, be put over in God's hands 
as arrested goods that you cannot claim. 
Now, when you are drinking the grounds 
of your cup, and are upon the utmost 
ends of the last link of time, and old age, 
like death's long shadow, is casting a cov- 
ering upon your days, it is no time to 
court this vain life, and to set love and 
heart upon it. It is near after supper; 
seek rest and ease for your soul in God 
through Christ. Come in, come in to 
Christ, and see what you want, and find 
it in him. He is tha short cut, as we used 
to say, and the nearest way to an outgate 
of all your burdens. I dare avouch you 
shall be dearly welcome to him. Angels' 
pens, angels' tongues, nay, as many worlds 
of angels as there are drops of water in 
all the seas, and fountains, and rivers 
of the earth, cannot paint him out to you, 
I think his sweetness, since I was a 
prisoner, has swelled upon me to the 
greatness of two heavens. Oh, for a soul 
as wide as the utmost circle of the high- 
est heaven, that containeth all, to contain 
his love ! samuel rutherford. 



EYEHIH6 OFTEN PLEASABTER THAH 
MORKING. 







,FTENTIMES we look forward with 
forebodings to the time of old age 
forgetful that at eventide it shall be 
light. To many saints, old age is the 
choicest season of their lives. A balmier 
air fans the mariner's cheek as he nears 
the shores of immortality, fewer waves 
ruffle his sea, quiet reigns — deep, still, and 
solemn. From the altar of age the flashes 
of the fire of youth are gone, but the 
more real flame of earnest feeling re- 
mains. The pilgrims have reached the 
land Beulah, that happy country whose 
days are as the days of heaven upon 



80 



EVENING OFTENER PLEASANTER THAN MORNING. 



earth. Angels visit it, celestial gales blow 
over it, flowers of Paradise grow in it, and 
the air is filled with seraphic music. Some 
dwell here for years, and others come to 
it but a few hours before their departure, 
buifc it is an Eden upon earth. We may 
well long for the time when we shall re- 
cline in its shady groves, and be satisfied 
with hope until the time of fruition comes. 
The setting sun seems larger than when 
aloft in the sky, and a splendor of glory 
tinges all the clouds which surround his 
going down. Pain breaks not the calm 
of the sweet twilight of age, for strength 
made perfect in weakness bears up with 
patience under it all. Ripe fruits of choice 
experience are gathered as the rare repast 
of life's evening, and the soul prepares 



itself for rest. The Lord's people shall 
also enjoy light in the hour of death. 
Unbelief laments ; the shadows fall, the 
night is coming, existence is ending. Ah ! 
no, cries faith, the night is far S2:)ent, the 
true day is at hand. Light is come — the 
light of immortality, the light of a Fath- 
er's countenance. Gather up thy feet in 
the bed ; see the waiting band of spirits I 
Angels waft thee away. Farewell, beloved 
one ; thou art gone ; thou wavest thine 
hand. Ah ! now it is light. The pearly 
gates are open, the golden streets shine 
in the jasper light. We cover our eyes, 
but thou beholdest the unseen. Adieu, 
brother ; thou hast light at eventide, such 
as we have not yet. 

CHARLES SPURGEON. 



^ 



PIETY IN OLD AGE. 



> 



They shaU still bring forth fruit in old age. 
xcii, 14. 



-Psalm 




AST naught of beauty's tint 

nor loving charm 

Been treasured 'neath 

the furrows years 

have made ? 

Have youthful thoughts 

like gems all dimmed 

and worn, 
In the dark lap of time 
been joyless laid? 

It may be so in a long 

lifetime spent 

Grasping the tinseled 

show of earthly good, 

Wnere all the powers that heaven had kindly 

lent, 

Served but the body — gave the soul no food. 

But go with me to yon old mansion fair, 
Where comfort sits in robe of ample fold. 

And sweet contentment like a beauteous star, 
Her loving vigils o'er its inmates hold. 

And there an aged man, whose placid brow. 
Hath the wild storms of fourscore winters 
met, 
But calm as peaceful summer evenings now. 
With signet seal of heaven all glorious set. 

6b 81 



And by his side with meek and trusting heart, 
The dear companion who in early youth 

Chose the sweet lot of "Mary's better part," 
And in her waning days still proves its truth. 

Oft when their welcome, happy guest, I've felt 
My heart grow stronger, sweetly fled my 
cares. 

As by that aged pair I've meekly knelt, 
And caught the inspiration of their prayers. 

And when the dewy eve comes soothingly 
To lull earth's weary children to repose, 

Again I seem to list the harmony, 

Which from that sacred altar sweetly rose. 

O sanctified old age ! low at thy feet 

I'd sit and precious drops of wisdom gain, 

While in thy spirit's light soft beauties meet, 
Which lift the soul above earth, age and pain. 

And calmly fades thy even, as on ye move 
Towards the shadowy vale of life's last ray, 

Still tending the sweet hours of hope and love 
That brightly cheered thy path in earlier day. 

O, I will deem thy silvery hairs more blest 
Than golden locks to youthfid beauty given ! 

For soon, soon, thou'ltgain thy glorious rest, 
And wear the crown awaiting thee ir 



heaven 



MRS. S. K, FUR MAN. 



^. ^'S'N FOR&IV^N IN OUP P^Gt. ^ ,. 



Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as 
snow. — Isaiah i., 18. 



/^m -^ y^ *^^^ -^^^^ wearily on your 
il 1 J ^*^^' ^^® support of your old age, 
^Jhr have ye not sins still clinging to 
t^ your garments ? Are your lives 
as white as the snowy hair that crowns 
your head? Do you not still feel that 
transgression besmears the skirts of your 
robe and mars its spotlessness ? How 
often are you now plunged into the ditch 
till your own clothes do abhor you ? Cast 
your eyes over the sixty, the seventy, the 
eighty years during which God hath 
spared your lives, and can ye for a mo- 
ment think it possible that ye can num- 
ber up your innumerable transgressions, 
or compute the weight of the crimes which 
you have committed? Oh ye stars of 
heaven! the astronomer may measure 
your distance and tell your height, but, 
oh ye sins of mankind! ye surpass all 
thought. Oh ye lofty mountains, the 
home of the tempest, the birthplace of the 
storm ! man may climb your summits and 
stand wonderingly upon your snows, but, 
ye hills of sin ! ye tower higher than our 
thoughts; ye chasms of transgressions! 
ye are deeper than our imagination dares 
to dive. Do you accuse me of slandering 
human nature ? It is because you know 
it not. If God had once manifested your 
heart to yourself, you would bear me wit 
ness that, so far from exaggerating, my 
poor words fail to describe the desperate- 
ness of our evil. Oh ! if we could each 
of us look into our hearts to-day — if our 
eyes could be turned within so as to see 
the iniquity that is graven as with the 
point of the diamond upon our stony 
hearts, Ave should then say to the minis- 
ter, that however he may depict the des- 
perateness of guilt, yet can he not by 
any means surpass it. How great, then, 
beloved, must be the ransom of Christ when 
he saved us from all these sins ! The men 
for whom Jesus died, however great their 



sin, when they believe, are justified from 
all their transgressions. Though they 
may have indulged in every vice and 
every lust which Satan could suggest and 
which human nature could perform, yet, 
once believing, all their guilt is washed 
away. Year after year may have coated 
them with blackness till their sin hath 
become of double dye; but in one momeni 
of faith, one triumphant moment of con- 
fidence in Christ, the great redemption 
takes away the guilt of numerous years. 
Nay, more ; if it were possible for all the 
sins that men had done, in thought, oi 
word, or deed, since worlds were made or 
time began, to meet on one poor head, the 
great redemption is all-sufiicient to take 
all these sins away, and wash the sinner 
whiter than the driven snow. 



SPURGEON, 



w 



THE OLD MAN'S BIBLE. 

Y Bible own, my Bible okl, 

Give back my faithful friend ; 
I've read it oft, I've read it long, 
I'll keep it to the end. 



You call it spoiled, and worthless deem, 

Because it is so old ! 
But this to me doth make it dear, 

Beyond all gems and gold. 

This is the page o'er which I wept 

When first my sins I knew, 
And here's the promise and the fount 

Whence all my hopes I drew. 

'Twas here were writ our household names, 

My children's natal day ; 
And here is marked the doleful time 

When death took them away. 

'Tis not in gilt and purple dress 

The volume's price is known ; 
The heart and mem'ry have a wealth 

In what we call our owx. 

My head is gray, my eye is dim, 

I can not court the new . 
Give back the old, the worn, the tried, 

The wonted and the true. 

WILLIAM ADAMS c 



82 



HAPPINESS OF THE LIFE TO COME. 




iHAT are these things, the 
false glare and shadows 
whereof in this earth are 
pursued with such keen 
and furious impetuosity — 
riches, honors, pleasures? 
All these, in their justest, purest, and sub- 
liniest sense, are comprehended in this 
blessed life. It is a treasure that can 
neither fail nor be carried away by force or 
fraud. It is an inheritance uncorrupted 
and undefiled ; a croion that fadeth not 
away ; a never-failing stream of joy and 
delight. It is a marriage feast, and of all 
others, the most joyous and most sumptu- 
ous ; one that always satisfies, and never 
cloys the appetite. It is an eternal spring 
and an everlasting light; a day without 
an evening. It is a paradise, where the 
lilies are always white and in full bloom, 
the saffron blooming, the trees sweat out 
their balsams, and the tree of life in the 
midst thereof. It is a city where the 
houses are built of living pearls, the gates 
of precious stones, and the streets paved 
with the purest gold. 

Yet all these are nothing but veils of 
the happiness to be revealed on that most 
blessed day ; nay, the light itself, which 
we have mentioned among the rest, though 
it be the most beautiful ornament in this 
visible world, is at best but a shadow of 
that heavenly glory ; and how small so- 
ever that portion of this inaccessible 
brightness may be, which, in the sacred 
Scriptures, shines upon us through these 
veils, it certainly very well deserves that 
we should often turn our eyes toward it, 
and view it with the closest attention. 

Kow the first thing that necessarily oc- 
curs in the constitution of happiness is a 
full and complete deliverance from every 
grievance, which we may as certainly ex- 
pect to meet with in that heavenly life, as 
it is impossible to be attained while we 



83 



sojourn here below. All tears shall be 
wiped away from our eyes, and every 
cause and occasion of tears forever re- 
moved from our sight. There, there are 
no tumults, no wars, no poverty, no death, 
nor disease — there, there is neither mourn- 
ing, nor fear, nor sin, which is the source 
and foundation of all other evils — there is 
neither .violence within doors nor without, 
nor any complaint in the streets of that 
blessed city — there no friend goes out nor 
enemy comes in. 

Full vigor of body and mind, health, 
beauty, purity, and perfect tranquility. 

The most delightful society of angels,, 
prophets, apostles, martyrs, and all th(i 
saints; among whom there are no re- 
proaches, contentions, controversies, nor 
party spirit, because there are there none 
of the sources whence they can spring nor 
any thing to encourage their growth ; for 
there is there particularly no ignorance, no 
blind self-love, no vainglory, nor envy, 
which is quite excluded from those divine 
regions ; but, on the contrary, perfect char- 
ity, whereby every one, together with his 
own felicity, enjoys that of his neighbors, 
and is happy in the one as well as the 
other. Hence there is among them a kind 
of infinite reflection and multiplication of 
happiness, like that of a spacious hall 
adorned with gold and precious stones, 
dignified with a full assembly of kings 
and potentates, and having its walls quite 
covered with the brightest looking-glasses. 
But what infinitely exceeds, and quite 
eclipses all the rest is that boundless 
ocean of happiness, which results from the 
beatific vision of the ever-blessed God, 
without which neither the tranquility 
they enjoy, nor the society of saints, nor 
the possession of any particular finite good, 
nor, indeed, of all such taken together, 
can satisfy the soul, or make it completely 

happy. ROBERT LEIGHTON. 



H^^Gop jHAS jijip w^ AJ.P TPFsp Y^AJiS.*^^ 



t 



HEN a Christian, towards tlie 
close of life, looks back upon 
his pilgrimage, as a whole and 
in its parts, the only way in 
which he can describe it is that suggested 
by the words of Scripture, '^ God hath 
LED ME all these years/^ I see it now so 
plainly : how there has been a hand over 
me, the hand of a real and living person, 
giving this, and withholding that, both 
alike for good; placing me perhaps where 
I would not, and then showing me that it 
had been well ; not suffering me to forget, 
or else recalling me to recollection ; deny- 
ing me, or else taking away from me 
something on which my heart was too 
much set, and then giving me something 
else which, because less desired, was safer; 
chastening me when I fell away, and often 
by sharp and painful strokes bringing me 
back to himself. Doubtless heaven will 
be full of such remembrances of earthly 
life, each remembrance ending in the 
ascription of praise. And can not earth 
anticipate these recollections, these ascrip- 
tions of praise? Yes, the youngest life 
has had some such experiences ; middle 
life has them in abundance ; oh, how we 
forget God when we are in prosperity! 
When life smiles on us, how do we think 
scorn, as it were, of the pleasant land 
beyond ; how do we provoke God by our 
murmurings ; how do we dishonor him by 
setting our affection on things below ! . . , 
When he slays us, we seek him, as it is 
written ; when he hides his face, we hum- 
ble ourselves ; when he delivers us again, 
we sing his praise, but within a while we 
forget his works ; we live carelessly; we 
scarcely pray; we cleave to tlie dust of 
this world ; again the stroke falls ; again 
we repent ; again we amend ; alas ! again 



it is a short-lived effort— and in many 
such backslidings, and a few such returns, 
life slips away ; the call comes, and is the 
door still open ? 

My brethren, God is leading you, offer- 
ing at least to lead you, all your life long ; 
and oh, the safety, the happiness — oh, the 
deep peace of those who accept the offer ! 
Every morning let your prayer be, Lord, 
LEAD ME. ... If I stray, follow me into 
the desert and recall me. If I faint, carry 
me in thy bosom. When I walk at last 
through the valley of the shadow of death, 
be thou with me. Let thy goodness and 
mercy follow me all the days of my life, 
and then let me dwell in thy house for- 
ever, c. J. VAUGHAN. 




A PRAYER FOR THE USE OF AN AGED PERSON. 

^LORD of my life, thou hast 
been my God from my birth, 
my hope and trust from my 
youth. By thee was I brought 
into the world, and upon thee 
have I lived all my days. 
With what patience and long- 
suffering hast thou endured 
me ! and with what loving kindness and 
tender mercies hast thou still followed and 
preserved me ! How many have I seen 
snatched out of this life, and, as I fear, 
miserably unprepared for their death; 
whereas thou prolongest my days, and 
still addest new mercies to my life. Oh^, 
that the lengthening of my days may be a 
real benefit, so that the whole work which 
the Lord has given me to do may be fin- 
ished. May I redeem the time, and im- 
prove all means and opportunities to the 
everlasting advantage of my soul. May 



84 



A PRAYER FOR THE USE OF AN AGED PERSON. 



my graces be as ripe as my years, and the 
remainder of my life be the best part of 
it. Though my sight is dim, let me not 
be blind to the things belonging to my 
peace. Though my ears are d all of hear- 
ing, let my heart be attentive to thy word, 
and let me hear thy voice while it is called 
" to-day/' Though I can not, as formerly, 
reliijh the pleasures of meat and drink, yet 
let me still taste the grace of the Lord, 
and savor the things of the Spirit of God. 
And though my limbs are weak, and my 
strength will not serve me to travel abroad 
as I have done, yet make me strong in the 
Lord to do thy work, to walk in thy ways, 
and to pursue my journey homeward to 
my house not made with mortal hands, 
eternal in the heavens. Oh, let not the 
length of my life tempt me to forget that 
it must soon end, but let me keep my last 
day ever in near prospect. May I order 



all ray concerns not only like a stranger 
and sojourner, but as a dying man prepar- 
ing and waiting for the coming of the 
Lord. Oh, that at thy coming thou niayest 
find me watching. And because I am old 
in sins as well as in years, O, my gracious 
Lord, give me that repentance which 
needeth not to be repented of. Thou hast 
saved many old sinners; be merciful to 
me in spite of my numberless provoca- 
tions. Put all my sins to the account of 
thy dear Son my Redeemer, and wash 
them all away in the fountain of his blood. 
Especially, O merciful Lord, pardon those 
sins which make the thoughts of death 
and judgment most painful to me. O, 
give me some evidence that I have found 
mercy at thy hands, through the all-suf- 
ficient merits of my only Savior, Jesus 
Christ. Amen. 

B. JENKS. 



DAHGER OF BACKSLIDIHG IH OLD AGE. 




ID it ever occur 
you that 
Christians were 
more apt to 
backslide and 
fall into open sin 
in the latter part 
of their religious 
course than in 
^^ its earlier stages? 
4\J^^^^^^^^^ It is a startling 
^3Ki)BfSWB^^ announcement, 
but I think you 
will find it true. 
Look at all the 
cases of back- 
Bliding recorded in the Bible. Did they not, 
every one ofthe^n, occur late in life? There 
Was David. In the days of his youth and 



early manhood, a pattern of faith and 
devotion. In advanced life guilty of 
murder and adultery, and still later of 
pride and self conceit in numbering the 
people. Look at Moses. The great sin 
of his life committed when just about to 
enter the promised land. Look at Heze- 
kiah — the "good king Hezekiah." In his 
early days zealous and devout. The last 
fifteen years of his life (a special gift from 
his God, and therefore, one would think, 
to be specially consecrated to him) bring- 
ing " wrath upon himself and upon Jeru- 
salem." So, too, with Josiah and with 
Solomon. Alas ! '' the strongest are weak 
and the wisest are fools when left to be 
sifted in Satan's sieve." It becometh 
tlie old as well as tlic young to watch 
and pray lest they enter into temptation 



85 



m 



r^P/'(Gk^gi>4?;\«V^ 



A PRAYER FOR LONGER LIFE. 




^=^^g^^?^ 




O spare me, that I may recover 
strength before I go hence, and be no 
more. — Psahn xxxix., 13, 

HY is it that we do not ex- 
tremely hate that which 
we so desperately love — 
sin ? For the deformity 
of itself is unspeakable; 
and, besides, it is the 
cause of all oui* woes. 
Sin hath opened the 
sluices, and let in the 
deluge of sorrows, which makes the life of 
poor man nothing else but vanity and 
misery, so that the meanest orator in the 
world may be eloquent enough on that 
subject. What is our life but a continual 
succession of many deaths ? Though we 
should say nothing of all the bitterness 
and vexations that are hatched under the 
sweetest pleasures in the world, this one 
thing is enough — the multitude of diseases 
and pains, the variety of distempers that 
ikose houses we are lodged in are exposed 
to. Poor creatures are ofttimes tossed 
between two — the fear of death and the 
tediousness of life, and under these fears 
they can not tell which to choose. Holy 
men are not exempted from some appre- 
hension of God's displeasure because of 
their sins, and that may make them cry 
out with David, " O spare me, that I may 
recover strength before I go hence, and be 
no more." Or perhaps this may be a de- 
sire, not so much simply for the prolong- 
ing of life as for the intermitting of his 
pain, to have ease from the present smart. 
The extreme torment of some sickness 
may draw the most fixed and confident 
spirits to cry out very earnestly for a little 
breathing. Or, rather, if the words im- 
ply a desire of recovery, and the spinning 
out of the thread of his life a little longer, 
surely he intended to employ it for God 



and his service. But long life was suita- 
ble to the promises of that time. There 
is no doubt those holy men, under the 
law, knew somewhat of the state of im- 
mortality ; their calling themselves " stran- 
gers on the earth " argued that they were 
no strangers to these thoughts. But it 
can not be denied that the doctrine was 
but darkly laid out in those times. It is 
Christ Jesus who hath "brought life and 
immortality to light," who did illuminate 
life and immortality, which before stood 
in the dark. 

Surely the desire of life is, for the most 
part, sensual and base, when men desire 
that they may still enjoy their animal 
pleasures, and are loth to be parted from 
them. They are pleased to term it a de^ 
sire to live and repent, and yet few do it 
when they are spared ; like evil debtors 
who desire forbearance from one term to 
another, but with no design at all to pay. 
But there is a natural desire of life, some- 
thing of abhorrence in nature against the 
dissolution of these tabernacles. We are 
loth to go forth, like children who are 
afraid to walk in the dark, not knowing 
what may be there. In some, such a de- 
sire of life may be very reasonable ; being 
surprised by sickness, and apprehensions 
of death and sin unpardoned, they may 
desire a little time before they enter into 
eternity. For that change is not a thing 
to be hazarded upon for a few days or 
hours' preparation. I will not say that a 
death -bed repentance is altogether des- 
perate, but certainly it is very dangerous 
and to be suspected, and therefore the de- 
sire of a little time longer, in such a case, 
may be very allowable. I will not deny 
but it is possible even for a believer to be 
taken in such a posture that it may be 
very uncomfortable to him to be carried 
ofi" so, through the afirightments of death 



86 



A PRAYER FOR LONGER LIFE. 



and his darkness as to his after-state. On 
the other hand, it is an argument of a good 
measure of spirituahty and height of love 
to God to desire to depart and be dissolved 
in the midst of health and the affluence 
of worldly comforts. But for men to de- 
sire and wish to be dead when they are 
troubled and vexed with anything is but 
a childish folly, flowing from a discon- 
tented mind, which being over, they de- 
sire nothing less than to die. It is true, 
there may be a natural desire of death, 
which at some time hath shined in the 
spirits of some natural men; and there is 
much reason for it, not only to be freed 
from the evils and troubles of this life, but 
even from those things which many of 
this foolish world account their happiness 
— sensual pleasures, to eat, and drink, and 
to be hungry again, and still to round 
that same course, which, to souls that are 
raised above sensual things, is burdensome 
and grievous. 

But there is a spiritual desire of death, 
which is very becoming a Christian. For 
Jesus Christ hath not only opened very 
clearly the doctrine of life, but he him- 
self hath passed through death, and lain 
down in the grave ; he hath perfumed that 
passage, and warmed that bed for us, so 
that it is sweet and amiable for a Chris- 
tian to pass through and follow him, and 
to be where he is. It is a strange thing 
that the souls of Christians have not a 
continual desire to go to that company 
which is above, finding so much dis- 
cord and disagreement among the best of 
men that are here — to go to the spirits of 
just men made perfect, where there is 
light, and love, and nothing else — to go to 
the company of angels, a higher rank of 
blessed spirits ; but, most of all, to go to 
God, and to Jesus, the Mediator of the 
New Testament. And, to say nothing 
positively of that glory (for, the truth is, 
we can say nothing of it), the very evils 
that death delivers a true Christian from 
may make him long for it ; for such a one 



may say, " I shall die and go to a more 
excellent country, where I shall be happy 
forever — that is, I shall die no more, I 
shall sorrow no more, and shall be tempted 
no more ; and, which is chiefest of a^l, I 
shaxl sin no more.'* 

ROBERT LEIGHTON. 




A PRAYER IN OLD AGE. 

WITH Years oppressed, with sorrows 
worn, 
Dejected, harassed, sick, forlorn, 
To Thee, O God, I pray : 
To Thee my withered hands arise; 
To Thee I lift these failing eyes : 
Oh, cast me not away ! 

Thy Mercy heard my Infant prayer ; 
Thy Love, with all a Mother's care 

Sustained my Childish days ; 
Thy Goodness watched my ripening Youth, 
And formed my heart to love Thy truth, 

And filled my lips with praise. 

O Saviour ! has Thy Grace declined ? 
Can years affect the Eternal Mind, 

Or Time its Love destroy ? 
A thousand ages pass Thy sight, 
And all their long and weary fligni; 

Is gone like yesterday. 

Then, e'en in Age and Grief Thy Name 
Shall still my languid heart inflame. 

And bow my faltering knee : 
Oh, yet this bosom feels the fire. 
This trembling hand and drooping lyre, 

Have yet a strain for Thee ! 

Yes, broken, tuneless, still, Lord, 
This voice transported shall record 

Thy Goodness, tried so long : 
Till, sinking slow, with cahn decay. 
Its feeble murmurs melt away 

Into a seraph's song. 



SIR ROBERT GRANT, 



87 



^ 



A PRAYER ON PREPARATION FOR DEATH, 



;[^ 




ORD, what 
is our life 
but a va- 
por that 
appears 
for a little 
time and 
then yan- 
i s h e t h 
away! 
Even at 
the long- 
est, how^ short! and at the strongest, how 
frail ! and when we think ourselves most 
secure, yet we know not what a day may 
bring forth, nor how soon thou mayest 
come to call us to our last account. Quickly 
shall we be as water spilt on the ground, 
that can not be gathered up again ; quickly 
snatched away from hence, and our place 
here shall know us no more forever. 
Our days, one after another, are spent 
apace ; and we know not how near to us 
is our last day, when our bodies shall be 
laid in the grave, and our souls be called 
to appear at the tribunal of God, to receive 
their eternal doom. Yet how have I lived 
in this world, as if I should never leave 
it; how unmindful of my latter end! 
how improvident of my time ! how care- 
less of my soul! how negligent in my 
preparation for my everlasting condition ! 
so that thou mayest justly bring my last 
hour as a snare upon me, to surprise me 
in my sins, and to cut me off in my in- 
iquities. But, 0, Father of mercies, re- 
member not my sins against me ; but 
remember thy own tender mercies and thy 
loving kindnesses, which have been ever of 
old. 0, remember how short my time is, and 
spare me, that I may recover strength before 
I go hence and be no more seen. Make me 
80 wise as to consider my latter end, and 
teach me so to number my days that I may 
apply my heart to true wisdom. Lord, 
what have I to do in this world but to make 
^ady for the world to come ! O, that I 



may be mindful of it, and be careful to 
finish my work before I finish my course I 
In the days of my health and prosper- 
ity, oh, that I may remember and provide 
for the time of trouble, and sickness, and 
death, when the world's enjoyments will 
shrink away from me, and prove utterly 
unable to support and comfort me. Let 
me never allow myself in any course of 
living wherein I would be loth or afraid 
to die; but let me see my corruptions 
mortified and subdued, that they may 
never rise up in judgment against me. 
Enable me so to die unto sin daily .that I 
may not die for sin eternally. Instruct 
me, good Lord, and assist me in my prep- 
aration for a dying hour, that I may not 
then be fully surprised, but may meet it 
with comfort and composure. Quicken 
me to a serious concern about that great 
work, and help me to perform it accept- 
ably and with good success. Oh that I 
may be fitted for heaven ere I leave this 
world, and may have peace with God 
through Jesus Christ before I depart 
hence into that state in which I must 
abide forever. 0, my Lord, make me so 
ready to meet thee at thy coming that 
thine appearance may be the matter of my 
hopes, and desires, and joyful expecta- 
tions ; that I may look and long for that 
blessed time when thou wilt put an ever- 
lasting period to all my troubles and 
temptations, and exchange my present 
state of infirmity and sin for a state of 
endless happiness and glory. O, thou who 
art my life and my strength, help me so 
to live as, at the hour of death, I shall 
wish I had lived; and so to make ready 
for death all my days that at my last day 
I may have nothing to do but to die, and 
cheerfully to resign my spirit into thy 
gracious hands. O, my Father, hear and 
answer my humble petitions, and let me 
find a merciful admission to thy favor and 
thy kingdom, for the sake of Jesus Christ. 
Amen. b. jenks. 



88 



■»■ ' » - 



^^^ ©HE (gir^GUliP ©I^BAGHBI^. J^^_ 




IS thin wife's cheek grows 
pinched and pale with 
anxiousness intense ; 
He sees the brethren's 
prayerful eyes o'er all 
the conference ; 
He hears the Bishop slow- 
ly call the long "Ap- 
pointment" rolls, 
Where in his vineyard 
God would place these 
gatherers of souls. 

Apart, austere, the knot of grim Presiding 

Elders sit ; 
He wonders if some city " Charge " may not 

for him have writ ? 
Certes ! could they his sermon hear on Paul 

and Luke awreck, 
Then had his talent ne'er been hid on Anno- 

mesix Neck ! 

Poor rugged heart, be still a pause, and you, 
worn wife, be meek ! 

Two years of banishment they read far down 
the Chesapeake ! 

Though Brother Bates, less eloquent, by Wil- 
mington is wooed, 

The Lord that counts the sparrows fall shall 
feed his little brood. 

" Cheer up ! my girl, here's Brother Riggs our 

circuit knows will please ; 
He raised three hundred dollars there, besides 

the marriage fees. 
What! tears from us who've preached the 

word these thirty years or so ? 
Two years on barren Chincoteague and two in 

Tuckahoe? 

** The schools are good, the brethren say, and 
our Church holds the wheel ; 

The Presbyterians lost their house ; the Bap- 
tists lost their zeal. 

The parsonage is clean and dry ; the town has 
friendly folk — 

Not half so dull as Rehoboth, nor proud like 
Pocomoke. 

" Oh ! thy just will, our Lord, be done, though 

these eight seasons more 
We see our ague-crippled boys pine on the 

Eastern Shore ; 



While we, thy stewards, journey out our dedi- 

cated years 
'Midst foresters of Nanticoke, or heathen ol 

Tangiers ! 

"Yea! some must serve on God's frontiers, 

and I shall fail, perforce. 
To sow upon some better ground my most 

select discourse ; 
At Sassafras, or Smyrna, preach my argument 

on ' Drink,' 
My s^ies on the Pentateuch, at Appoquini- 

mink. 

"Gray am I, brethren, in the work, though 

tough to bear my part ; 
It is these drooping little ones that sometimes 

wring my heart, 
And cheat me with the vain conceit that 

cleverness is mine. 
To fill the churches of the Elk, and pass the 

Brandywine. 

"These hairs were brown, when, full of hope, 

entering these holy lists. 
Proud of my Order as a knight — the shouting 

Methodists — 
I m.ade the pine woods ring with hymns, with 

prayer the night-winds shook. 
And preached from Assawainan Light far 

north as Bombay Hook. 

" My nag was gray, my gig was new ; fast went 

the sandy miles ; 
The eldest Trustees gave me praise, the fairest 

sisters smiles ; 
Still I recall how Elder Smith of Worten 

Heights averred 
My Apostolic Parallels the best he ever heard. 

"All winter long I rode the snows, rejoicing 

on my way ; 
At midnight our revival hymns rolled o'er the 

sobbing bay ; 
Three Sabbath sermons, every week, should 

tire a man of brass — 
And still our fervent membership must have 

their extra Class ! 

"Aggressive with the zeal of yt)uth, in many 

a warm requite 
I terrified Immersionists, and scourged the 

Millerite : 



89 



THE CIRCUIT PREACHER. 



But larger, tenderer charities such vain de- 
bates supplant, 

When the dear wife, saved by my zeal, loved 
the Itinerant. 

* Ko cooing dove of storms afeard, she shared 
my life's distress, 

A singing Miriam alway, in God's poor wilder- 
ness : 

The wretched at her footstep smiled, the frivo- 
lous were still ; 

A bright path marked her pilgrimage, from 
Blackbird to Snow Hill. 

"A new face in the parsonage, at church a 

double pride ! — 
Like the Madonna and her babe they filled 

the ' Amen side.' 
Crouched at my feet in the old gig, my boy, 

so fair and frank, 
Nascongo's darkest marshes cheered, and 

sluices of Choptank. 



In velvet pulpits of the North said my best 

sermons o'er, — • 
And that on Paul to Patmos driven drew tears 

in Baltimore. 

" Well ! well ! my brethren, it is true we should 

not preach for pelf, — 
(I would my sermon on St. Paul the Bishop 

heard himself! ) 
But this crushed wife, — these boys, — these 

hairs ; they cut me to the core ; 
Is it not hard, year after j^ear, to ride ths 

Eastern Shore ? 

"Next year? Yes! yes! I thank you much! 

then my reward may=€g^tfc/>'3i:<,'7'-/ 
(That is a downright fine discourse on Patmos 

andSt. Ea;al![ -,^-- 
So, Brother Biggs, once more my voice shall 

ring in the old lists. 
Cheer up, sick heart, who would not die 

among these Methodists ? " 

GEORGE ALFRED TOWNS END. 



I 



"My cloth drew close; too fruitful love my 

fruitless life outran ; 
The townfolk marveled, when we moved, at 

such a caravan ! 
I wonder not my lads grew wild, w^hen, bright, 

without the door 
Spread the ripe, luring, wanton world, and w^e 

within so poor ! 

"For down the silent cypress aisles came 

• shapes even me to scout, 
Mocking the lean flanks of my mare, my 

boy's patched roundabout, 
And saying: 'Have these starveling boors, 

thy congregation, souls. 
That on their dull heads Heaven and thou 

pour forth such living coals? " 

" Then prayer brought hopes, half secular, like 

seers by Endor's witch : 
Beyond our barren Maryland God's folks were 

wise and rich ; 
Where climbing spires and easy pews showed 

how the preacher thrived, 
And all old brethren paid their rents, and 

many young ones wived I 

"I saw the ships Henlopen pass with chap- 
lains fat and sleek ; 

From Bishopshead with fancy's sails I crossed 
the Chesapeake; 



THE ONE GRAY HAIR. 

The wisest of the wise 
Listen to pretty lies, 
' And love to hear them told; 
Doubt not that Solomon 
Listened to many a one, — 
Some in his youth and'more when he grew old. 

I never sat among 

The choir of Wisdom's song, 

But pretty lies loved I 
And such as any king, — 
When youth was on the wing. 
And (must it then be told?) when youth had 
quite gone by. 



Alas I and I have not 
The pleasant hour forgot. 

When one pert lady said, — 
" O Landor, I am quite 
Bewildered with affright ; 
(sit quiet now!) a white hair on your 
head!" 

Another more benign, 
Drew out that hair of mine, 
And in her own dark hair 
Pretended she had found 
That one, and twirled it round. — 
as she was, she never was so fair. 

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 



I see 



Fair 



90 




DAY 

of life, 
shall we 
think, is 
drawing to 
its close. It 
has been, on 
the whole, a sober day, with " the light 
not. clear nor dark;" there has been neither 
unvarying sunshine nor unvarying gloom; 
there have been, no doubt, some great trials 
in it, and a host of little insect cares, which 
do no worse than fret and annoy ; it has 
seemed, perha])s, a dull and weary thing, yet 
we have grown to like even its dulness and 
commonness ; it has had within it times 
of special elevation, love to the Redeemer, 
trust in God ; and it has had, too, its 
seasons of backsliding, of coldness and 
worldliness,of lack of interest in spiritual 
engagements, of despondency, and almost 
of despair. For the day of grace goes 
by just such rules as the day of provi- 
dence, and save a few blessed and mem- 
orable believers, who have seemed to 
breathe the air of heaven even while they 
lived on earth, it is the general experi- 
ence of even the earnest believer that his 
inward feeling, like his outward lot, is a 
checkered one, is in the main a sobered 
one — is shone upon by a light which is 
" not clear nor dark." But the evening 
of the long day is drawing on at length — 
the day that dawned with the sunny 
cheerfulness of infancy and childhood, 
that went on amid the growing cares of 
maturity, that sloped westerly amid the 
enfeebled powers and the flagsring hopes 
of age ; and as the evening advances, as 
the hours go on in which the light that 



had lasted through the day might naturally 
grow less, strange how it oftcniiu.es is 
that that unwearied light does but beam 
brighter and clearer ! It was but a 
cloudy day; but the Sun of Highteousness 
has broken through the clouds ; the flam- 
ing west is all purple and gold ; it is the 
evening time, and oh, how fair its light ! 
It has sometimes been, as in that beauti- 
ful story, that the last steps before the 
dark river was reached lay through the 
land of Beulah ; that already the bright- 
ness of the golden city shone from afar 
upon the believer's face, and his sharpened 
ear could almost catch the fall of its cease- 
less songs. I do not say that such a thing 
is common ; all I say is that such a thing 
has been, and wherefore should it not be 
again with you or me ? I shall not pre- 
tend to describe this happy state in my 
own words ; I shall tell you about it in 
the words of one who spoke from his own 
experience, and who, shortly before he 
died, wrote as thus : " Were I to adopt 
the figurative language of Bunyan, I 
might date this letter from the land of 
Beulah, of which I have been for some 
weeks a happy inhabitant. The Celestial 
City is full in my view. Its glories have 
been upon me, its breezes fan me, its odors 
are wafted to me, its sounds strike upon 
my ears, and its spirit is breathed into my 
heart. Nothing separates me from it but 
the river of death, which now appears but 
as an insignificant rill, that mav be crossed 
at a single step whenever God shall give 
permission. The Sun of .Righteous- 
ness has been gradually drawing nearer 
and nearer, appearing larirer and brighter 
as he approached, and now he fills the 



91 



AT EVENING TIME IT SHAIL BE LIGHT. 



wnole hemisphere, pouring forth a flood 
of glory, in which I seem to float like an 
insect in the beams of the sun ; exulting 
yet almost trembling, while I gaze on this 
excessive brightness, and wonder with 
unutterable wonder why God should 
deign thus to shine upon a sinful worm." 
There, my readers, are words dictated by 
experience. That is what was actually 
written by a dying man. And oh ! what 
need I add to it to make you feel how 
glorious a sermon it is upon the blessed 
promise that " at the evening time there 
shall be light/' 

But then you will say to me, and say 
it truly, that it is not always so. Not 
only is it not the case that all who have 
" died the death of the righteous " have 
thus tranquilly, fearlessly, hopefully, 
triumphantly passed away, but has not 
such a thing been known as that one who 
was a true Christian, if true Christian 
ever breathed, died absolutely in despair ? 
Oh, who can forget the story of that 
sweet and gentle poet, who would take 
nothing to himself at the last of the com- 
fort his words have given to others ; whose 
latest lines sadly tell us how his soul was 
whelmed in deeper than Atlantic depths ; 
who regarded himself as doomed to ever- 
lasting perdition, and who shuddered at 
the very mention of the name of that 
blessed Redeemer who was looking down 
in kindness upon his wayward child ! 
But, then, let me remind you that, fine as 
was the poet's mind, it was a mind un- 
hinged and deranged ; and however the 
Holy Spirit works upon the renewed soul, 
he no more sets himself to cure hereditary 
diseases of the mind than those of the 
body. Religion does not alter tempera- 
ment ; it leaves the cheerful man cheer- 
ful; it leaves the anxious, desponding 
man still prone to look at the future 
through the haze of anxiety and fear. It 



no more pretends to cure that hereditary 
taint, that overshadowing gloom that all 
his life had its grasp of Cowper's mind, 
than it pretends to weed out the family 
consumption or apoplexy from the Chris- 
tian's body ; and never let us forget that 
constitutional temperament, and the de- 
pressing influence of many forms of 
disease, may make dark and distressful 
the dying-bed of the very best believers. 
Perhaps, even with true Christians, the 
death is as the life was, the evening is 
what the day was — '^ not clear nor dark " 
— as the general rule. There are blessed 
hopes, but there are also distressing fears. 
And shall we say, then, that this text 
does not speak truth ? No, far from that. 
The light does come, and it comes at even- 
ing ; but evening is the close of day, and 
the light may perhaps not beam forth 
until the day has entirely closed. Not 
upon this side of time may the blessed 
promise find its fulfilment. The foot 
may be dipped in the chill dark river he- 
fore the heavenly light has shone upon 
the face. The eye may be blind to dearest 
faces and forms ere the Sun of Righteous- 
ness dawns, as in the natural v. orld the 
darkest, coldest hour is that b<»fore the 
daybreak. The tongue may never be 
able to tell surviving loved ones how the 
shadows fled away when the dark valley 
was past till they have passed that dark- 
ness, too. Yes, to the believer, true as 
God liveth, " at the evening time there 
shall be light ;" if not in this world, then 
in a better ! Bowing his head to pass 
under the dark portal, the believer lifts it 
up on the other side in the presence and 
light of God. It is but a single step 
from the darkness of death into the light 
of immortality ; and if the evening should 
remain gloomy to its very end, all the 
brighter will seem the glory when the 
latest breath has parted. I told you how 



92 



AT EVENING TIME IT SHALL BE LIGHT. 



that Christian poet passed away almost in 
despair ; how the gloom that overshad- 
owed his spirit endured all but to the end ; 
but even in the last moment there came 
a wonderful change, and they tell us how 
even on his dead face there remained, till 
it was hidden forever, a look of bright, 
and beautiful, and sudden surprise ; the 
light of eveiyng had been long in coming, 
but oh ! it had come at last. 

There is something very touching 
about the story of that eminent teacher, 
the most eminent of his time, who, when 
his mind wandered in the weakness of the 
dying hour, fancied himself among his 
pupils, engaged in his accustomed work, 
and whose last words, when the shadow 
of death was falling deeper, were, " It 
grows dark, boys ; you may go." There 
is something touching, too, in the parting 
scene of that great poet, dying as the sun 
was going down in its summer glory, who 
bade his friends raise him that he might 
see the light once more — open the window 
that he might look upon the setting sun 
again before his eyes should close upon 
the earthly light forever. And very 
strange it is, indeed, to stand as some of 
us may have stood, in the chamber of 
death, and in the west to see the summer 
sunset blazing, and the golden rays shin- 
ing upon the still face and the closed eyes 
which never shall open more till the sun 
has ceased to shine. But it is only to us 
who remain that the evening darkness is 
growing — only for us that the sun is going 
down. Oh ! look on the fixed features of 
that disciple now asleep in Jesus, and 
think, as the prophet spake, " Thy sun shall 
no more go down, neither shall thy moon 
withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be thine 
everlasting light, and the days of thy 
mourning shall be ended." And oh ! my 
readers, tell me, as the evening falls on 
you, but not on him; as the shadows 



deepen on you, but not on him ; as the 
darkness gathers on you, but not on him, 
if now, at last, the glorious promise has 
not found its perfect fulfilment, that '^ at 
the evening time there shall be light." 



REV. A. K . H. BOYD, 



HEAVEN BEYOND. 

I EYOKD these chilling winds and gloomy 

skies — 
Beyond death's cloudy portal — 
There is a land where beauty never dies, 
And love becomes immortal. 

A land whose light is never dimmed by shade, 

Whose fields are ever vernal, 
Where nothing beautiful can ever fade, 

But blooms for aye eternal. 

We may not know how sweet its balmy 
air, 
How bright and fair its flowers ; 
We may not hear the songs that echo 
there, 
Through those enchanted bowers. 

The city's shining towers we may not see, 

With our dim earthly vision ; 
For Death, the silent warder, keeps the 
key 

That opes those gates elysian. 

But sometimes, where adown the western 
sky 

The fiery sunset lingers, 
Its golden gates swing inward noiselessly. 

Unlocked by silent fingers : 

And while they stand a moment half ajar. 

Gleams from the inner glory 
Stream lightly through the azure vault 
afar, 

And half reveal the story. 

O land unknown I O land of love divine ! 

Father all-wise, eternal, 
Guide, guide these wandering, way-worn feet 
of mine 
Unto those pastures vernal. 

NANCY A. W. PRIEST, 



93 



.ysii\. 



-I « HEARING THE SHORE.» |- 

\ J 




X old man sat in 
a "U'orn arm- 
chair ; 
TMiite as snow 
is his thin soft 
hair ; 
Fnrro^-ed his 
cheek by time 

and care ; 
And back and 
forth he 
sways ; 
There's a far- 
away look in 
his dim, 
dim eye, 
Which tells of 
thoughts o f 
the long 
gone-by. 

Por he sits once more 'neath a cloudless sky, 
And in childhood msrrily plays. 

He rests his cheek on the head of his cane, 
And, happily smiling, dreams over again 
Of that home, the brook, the meadow, the 

lane, 
Dreams nil with a vision clear; 
Then chiklhood yields unto manhood's 

place, 
And he looks once more in his bright, bright 

face, 
And down in the starry eyes he can trace 
A love remembered and dear. 

Then he wakes and sighs : " It seems but a 

dream 
That comes to me now like a golden gleam, 
Or the shimmering glow of the sun's last 

beam, 
But 'tis pleasant to think it o'er. 
That youth was so sweet, but now it is past; 
Those days of love were too precious to 

laet, 



But over yonder their pleasures are c&xst^ 
And I am nearing the shore." 

He is gliding on in his little boat ; 

O'er the calm still water they peacefully float 

But echo full oft brings a well-known note 

From the land he has left beliind. 
But Time will row back for him no more. 
And he gazes away to that other shore, 
And knows when the voyage of life shall be 

o'er. 
That his dream beyond he will find. 

Tiie seeds of youth, which in youth we sow, 
Adown through the isles of the future will 

grow, 
And shed on age a beautiful glow, 

As they come in memory's gleams. 
Loved faces will come to dimming sight; 
Sweet words 'Rill echo in day-dreams bright. 
And circle old age with their halos of light 

As they mingle in beautiful dreams. 



LIGHT AT EVENTIDE. 

T evening time let there be light : 
Life's little day draws near its 
close ; 

Around me fall the shades of night, 
Tlie night of death, the grave's repose : 
To crown my joys, to end my woes, 
At evening time let there be light. 

At evening time let there be light : 
Stormy and dark hath been my day ; 

Yet rose the morn divinely bright, 

Dews, birds, and blossoms cheered the way; 
Oh for one sweet, one parting ray I 

At evening time let there be light. 

At evening time there shall be ligh*^, 
For God hath spoken — it must be ; 

Fear, doubt, and anguish take their flight— 
His glory non' is risen on me. 
Mine eyes shall His salvation see. 

'Tis evening time, and there is light. 




94 



^^^ AH OLD PILGRIM AT HIS JOURHErS EHI), pf^ 




ARYOSSO, when more 
than eighty years old, 
and almost at the end 
of his pilgrimage — 
and what a pilgrimage 
was his — wrote : " I 
think I never felt my 
feeble frame so crushed 
with the infirmities of 
age as in the past week. 
But it is very pleasing 
to know that while 
this earthly house of 
my tabernacle is dissolving, I have a 
building of God, a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens ! Glory be 
to God for such a knowledge as this ! 
Amen and Amen." This sounds like the 
shouting of an old wounded hero on the 
battle-field, in the midst of victory. He 
suffered excruciatingly at last from an in- 
curable malady ; but the path of his 
pilgrimage grew brighter, even unto the 
perfect day. He writes, after a period of 
confinement : " Seeing that nature's ties 
are all dissolving, it affords me no small 
consolation to look forward to the build- 
ing of God in the heavens, which I know 
is mine by the inward testimony of the 
Spirit. Yes, for thee, my soul, for thee ! 
Glory be to God! I feel my bodily 
weakness increasing more and more ; but 
I bless God ; he gives me iresh tokens of 
his love and approbation to assure me that 
I am his. This morning, feeling much 
of the helpless worm, I wanted a stronger 
inward testimony of my sonship, and 
looking up to my Advocate with God, 
these words sweetly flowed into my mind : 

•Before the throne my Surety stands ; 
My name is written on his hands.' 



This was enough ; tears of joy over- 



flowed my eyes, and my heart dissolved 
with love.'' 

The end approached ; eighty-three 
years had passed over him, and yet the 
brightness increases. He writes : " Yes- 
terday I went to chapel, but was so poorly 
it was with difficulty I could return. At 
present I seem stripped of nearly all ray 
bodily strength, but I bless the Lord I 
feel my mind perfectly resigned. Christ 
is all in all. I want no other portion in 
earth or heaven. His presence makes 
my paradise. Unto me, who am less 
than the least of all saints, is this grace 
given. Glory be to God !" 

At last the veteran in his eighty-fifth 
year lies down to die. His disease was 
a local complaint, incident to old age, and 
inexpressibly painful — one that destroys 
existence mostly by the effect of pain 
itself, exhausting the constitution, and 
gradually consuming life. I suppose that 
if Carvosso had died of fire, beginning 
with the hand and burning onward 
slowly till the consuming process had in- 
vaded the vital functions, he could scarcely 
have suffered more; and yet his faith 
bore him up as on the pinions of an angel. 

An old fellow pilgrim calls on the dying 
hero ; they never expect to see each other 
in the flesh ; their hearts melt, but while 
they talked over past and present mercies 
they seemed to mount high in the chariot 
of Aminadab, and " my father," says the 
son, "was J lost in wonder, love, and 
praise !' " 

The end was at hand. He had a prodi- 
gious strength of constitution, but the 
consuming agony shakes and baffles it; 
yet the song of deliverance was on his 
lips. His son writes : " My dear afflicted 
father is now evidently fast sinking in tlie 



95 



AN' OLD PILGRIM AT HIS JOURNEY'S END. 



outward man, but his confidence in 
Jehovah is steadfast, unmovable. The 
heat of the furnace still increases, and 
nothins: short of an Abrahamic faith can 
support the strong commanding evidence 
of God's unchanging love. But he is 
unburned in fire, and appears to beholders 
a blessed monument of the power of re- 
ligion. "With tears and his own indes- 
cribable emphasis, he repeated those 
beautiful verses : 

* Though waves and storms go o'er my head ; 

Though strength, and health, and friends be gone; 
Though joys be "Withered all and dead. 

And every comfort be •withdrawn. 
On this my steadfast soul relies — 
Father, thy mercy never dies. 

' Fixed on this ground will I remain, 

Though my heart fail and fiesh decay ; 
This anchor shall my soul sustain 

\Mien earth's foundations melt away; 
Mercy's full power I then shall prove, 
Loved with an everlasting love ! ' 

" Xever since the commencement of 
his affliction have I seen him so exceed- 
ingly far lifted above himself. At times 
for hours together he is sustained in the 
highest Christian triumph." 



At last the keen agonv ends — the aged 
saint departs. He speaks of his funeral ; 
he loses the power of speech ; it returns 
again for a few minutes ; his friends bow 
around him in prayer ; he responds with 
animation; he pronounces a benediction 
upon them when they rise, and now, 
" gathering up his feet '' to go, he 
sings with his expiring breath the dox- 
ology : 

" Praise God, from whom all blessings flow !" 

But his voice fails before the chorus 
is through. A friend of his bedside speaks 
of the uplifted hand as a not unusual 
sign of victory in death when all other 
power of expression is gone. The arm 
of the dying hero rises, and he is gone. 
So triumphed in death "William Carvosso, 
in the eighty-fifth year of his life, and 
the sixty-foarth of his religious pilgrim> 
age. He was a man of humble life, eX'. 
traordinary usefulness, entire consecration, 
and victorious faith. 

ABEL STEVENS, LL. D. 



I WOULD NOT LIVE ALWAY. 



^ "WOULD not live alway — ^live alwav Like the patriarck's 6ird, and no resting is 

J^ below! found; 

^^^^^ Ok, no, I'll not linger, when bidden to Where Hope, when she paints her gay bow in 

go. the air, 

The days of our pilgrimage granted us here Leaves her brilUance to fade in the night of 
Are enough for life's woes, full enough for its despair, 

cheer. And joy's fleeting angel ne'er sheds a gUd ray, 

Would I shrink from the path which the Save the gleam of the plumage that beai^ 

prophets of God, 
Apostles and Martyrs so joyfully trod? 
WTiile brethren and friends are all hastening 

home, 



nun awav 



Like a spirit unblest, o'er the earth would I ^^ ,, 



I would not live alway thus fettered by sin, 
Temptation without, and corruption within; 
In a moment of strength it I sever the chain. 



roam .' 

I would not live alway ; I ask not to stay 
Where storm aft^r storm rises dark o'er the 

way ; 
Where, seeking for rest, I but hover around 



victory is mine e'er I'm captive 

again. 
E'en the rapture of pardon is mingled witb 

fears, 
And the cup of thanksgi^'ing with penitent 

tears. 



96 



/ WOULD NOT LIVE ALWAY. 



The festival trump calls for jubilant songs, 
But my spirit her own miserere prolongs. 

I would not live alway : no, welcome the 

tomb! 
Immortality's lamp burns there bright 'mid 

the gloom. 
There, too, is the pillow where Christ bow'd 

His head ; 
Oh, soft be my slumbers on that holy bed ! 
And then the glad morn soon to follow that 

night. 
When the sunrise of glory shall burst on my 

sight, 
And the full matin-song as the sleepers arise 
To shout in the morning, shall peal through 

the skies. 

Who, who would live alway, aw^ay from his 

God, 
Away from yon heaven, that blissful abode. 
Where the rivers of pleasure flow o'er the 

bright plains, 
And the noontide of glory eternally reigns ; 
Where the saints of all ages in harmony meet. 
Their Saviour and brethren transported to 

greet. 
While the anthems of rapture unceasingly 

roll, 
And the smile of the Lord is the feast of the 

soul? 

That heavenly music ! what is it I hear ? 
The notes of the harpers ring sweet on my 

ear! 
And see soft unfolding those portals of gold, 
The King all array 'd in His beauty behold! 
Oh give me, oh give me the wings of a dove ! 
Let me hasten my flight to those mansions 

above ; 
Ay ! 'tis now that my soul on swift pinions 

would soar, 
And r*n ecstasy bid earth adieu evermore. 

WILLIAM AUGUSTUS MUHLENBERG. 



A little while for patient vigil-keeping, 
To face the stern, to battle with the strong; 

A little while to sow the seed with weeping. 
Then bind the sheaves and sing the harvest- 
song. 

A little while to wear the weeds of sadness. 
To pace with weary steps through noisy 
ways ; 
Then to pour forth the fragrant oil of gladness, 
And clasp the girdle round the robe of 
praise. 

A little while midst shadow and illusion 

To strive by faith love's mysteries to spell : 
Then read each dark enigma's bright solu- 
tion, — 
Then hail sight's verdict, "He doth all 
things well." 

A little while the earthen pitcher taking 
To wayside brooks from far-off fountains 
fed; 

Then the cool lip its thirst forever slaking 
Beside the fullness of the fountain-head. 

A little while to keep the oil from failing, 
A little while faith's flickering lamp to trim. 

And then, the Bridegroom's coming footsteps 
hailing, 
To haste to meet him with the bridal-hj^mn. 

And he who is himself the Gift and Giver— 
The future glory and the present smile, 

"With the bright promise of the glad forever 
Will light the shadows of the " little while." 

JANE CREWDSON. 



^HAT 



A LITTLE WHILE. 

OFOR the peace which floweth as a river, 
Making life's desert places bloom and 
smile ! 
^^ foi' the faith to grasp heaven's bright " for- 
ever," 
Amid the shadows of earth's " little while !" 
7b 97 



WHAT THEN? 

then? \A^iy. then another pil- 
grim song ; 
And then a hush of rest, divinely granted ; 
And then a thirsty stage (ah me, so long) ! 
And then a brook, just where it most is 
wanted. 

What then ? The pitching of the evening 
tent ; 
And then, perchance, a pillow rough and 
thorny ; 
And then some sweet and tender message, sent 
To clieor the faint one for to-morrow's 
journey. 



WHAT THEN? 



What then ? The wailing of the midnight 
wind, 
A feverish sleep, a heart oppressed and 
aching ; 
And then a httle water-cruse to find 
Close by my pillow, ready for my waking. 

What then ? I am not careful to inquire ; 

I know there will be tears, and fears, and 
sorrow ; 
And then, a loving Sa^'ior drawing nigher, 

And saying " Jwill answer for the morrow." 

VMiat then? For all my sins, his pardoning 
grace ; 
For all my wants and woes, his loving- 
kindness ; 
For darkest shades, the shining of God's face, 
And Christ's o^nti hand to lead me in my 
blindness. 

What then? A shadowy valley, lone and 
dim; 

And then, a deep and darkly rolling river ; 
And then a flood of light, a seraph's hymn, 

And God's own smile forever and forever ! 

JANE CREWDSON. 



0, would that I were with them, amid theii 

shining throng, 
Mingling in their worship, joining in their 

song ! 

The friends that started with me have entered 

long ago ; 
One by one they left me struggling with the 

foe. 
Their pilgrimage was shorter; their triumph 

sooner won ; 
How lo\'ingly they'll hail me when all my 

toil is done ! 

'SMien them, the blessed angels, that know no 

grief or sin, 
I see them by the portal, prepared to let me 

in. 
Oh, Lord, I wait thy pleasure ; thy time and 

way are best ; 
But I'm wasted, worn, and weary ; O, Father, 

bid me rest! 

GUTHRIE. 



TO DEPART ASD BE WITH CHRIST— FAR 
BETTER. 



KNEELING AT THE THRESHOLD. 

I'm kneeling at the threshold, weary, faint^ 
and sore, 
Waiting for the dawning, for the opening 
of the door ; 
Waiting till the Master shall bid me rise and 

come 
To the glory of his presence, to the gladness 
of his home ! 

A wearj^ path I've traveled 'mid darkness, 

storm, and strife ; 
Bearing many a burden, struggling for my 

life. 
But now the morn is breaking, my toil will 

soon be o'er ; 
I'm kneeling at the threshold ; my hand is on 

the door. 

Methinks I hear the voices of the blessed 

as they stand 
Singing in the sunshine in the far-off sinless 

land; 



NOT only the dead are the living, 
but, since they have died, they 
live a better life than ours. . . . 
In what particulars is their life now^ highei 
than it was ? First, they have close fel- 
lowship with Christ ; then they are sep-i- 
rated from this present body of weakness, 
of dishonor, of corruption ; then they are 
withdrawn from all the trouble and toil 
and care of this present life ; and then, and 
surely not least, they have got death be- 
hind them, not having that awful figure 
standing on their horizon waiting for them 
to come up with it. . . . They are closer 
to Christ ; they are delivered from the 
body as a source of weakness; as a hin- 
derer of knowledge; as a dragger-down 
of all the aspiring tendencies of the soui ; 
as a source of sin; as a source of pain; 
they are delivered from all the necessity 



98 



TO DEPART AND BE WITH CHRIST— FAR BETTER, 



of labor which is agony, of labor which 
is disproportionate to strength, of labor 
which often ends in disappointment, of 
labor which is wasted so often in mere 
keeping life in, of labor which at the best 
is a curse, though it be a merciful curse, 
too ; they are delivered from that " fear 
of death ^' which, though it be stripped of 
its sting, is never extinguished in any 
soul of man that lives; and they can 
smile at the way in which that narrow 
and inevitable passage bulked so large 
before them all their days, and, after all, 
when they come to it was so slight and 
small. If these be parts of the life of 
them that *' sleep in Jesus ;" if they are 
fuller of knowledge, fuller of wisdom 
fuller of love, and capacity of love, 
and object of love; fuller of holi- 
ness, fuller of energy, and yet full of 
rest from head to foot; if all the hot 
tumult of earihly experience is stilled and 
quieted, all the fever beating of this blood 
of ours ever at an end ; all the " whips 
and arrows of outrageous fortune '' done 
with forever, and if the calm face which 
we looked upon, and out of which the 
lines of sorrow, and pain, and sickness 
melted away, giving it back a nobler noble- 
ness than we had ever seen upon it in life, 
is only an image of the restful and more 
blessed being into which they have passed 
• — if the dead are thus, then " Blessed are 
the dead/' 

A, M ' L A R E N. 



THOUGHTS OF HEAVEN. 



I love to think of heaven, I long to join the 

choir, 
To sing the song of Jesus my soul would never 

tire ; 
The loved ones gone hefore me, are joining 

in the song, 
They cast their crowns hefore the Lamb who 

sits upon the throne. 

I love to think of heaven, where the weary 

are at rest, 
No sorrow there can enter the mansions of 

the blest ; 
All tears are wiped away by the Saviour's 

loving hand, 
And sin and death are banished from that 

glorious happy land. 

I love to think of heaven, and the greetings I 

shall meet, 
From the loving band of loved ones, who walk 

the golden street; 
And the patriarchs and prophets 1 shall know 

them every one ; 
It is written in the Word "^Ye shall know as 

we are known." 

The gospel seer Isaiah, and the plaintive 

Jeremiah, 
And Elijah, who ascended in the chariot of 

fire; 
And Daniel, the beloved, and the Hebrew 

children three, 
The robed in white, and crowned, will be 

known by you and me. 

But oh, the rapturous vision when our eyes 
behold the King, 

And hear the thrilling welcome " Ye blessed, 
enter in ! " 

Ten thousand suns encircle Him, ten thous- 
and crowns adorn 

The sacred head that bow'd in death— the 
head once crowned with thorns. 



LOVE to think of .heaven, it seems not Assemble, all ye hosts, ye thrones, dominions, 



far away, 



powers 



"" Its crystal streams refresh me as I near There is no king like Jesus ! there is no 

the closing day, heaven like ours ? 

Its balmy winds are wafted from the heavenly All glory hallelujah; let heaven and earth 

hills above, unite 

And they fold me in an atmosphere of purity To celebrate His praises with infinite 
and love; delight I 




_ .«=::|c=>». 

YOUTH RENEWED IN AGE. 



^ 



IHKISTIAN confidence 
and hope in God give 
freshness, strength, 
and joy even in the 
period of old age. 
"They that wait on 
Jehovah" — or, in 
modern English, they 
that wait for him, who 
evince their trust in 
his goodness and pow- 
er by patiently await- 
ing the fulfillment of 
his promises, they, 
though no longer young (mark the con- 
trast with ver. 80) — "shall renew their 
strength : they shall mount up on wings 
like eagles; they shall run and not be 
weary, and they shall walk and not faint,"* 
The same thought is in the thanksgiving 
of the one hundred and third Psalm, verse 
5. " Bless the Lord, my soul, who sat- 
isfieth thy mouth with good things, so 
that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. " 
From both we may conclusively gather 
that Divine grace has influences to bestow 
which can counteract and often annul the 
debilitating tendencies of old age. We 
are not authorized, it is true, to teach that 
any degree of religious affection can turn 
back the shadow on the dial-plate, restore 
its auburn beauty to the gray head, or 
neutralize the physical causes of distress ; 
though even here, such is the power of 
spirit over matter, that history shows 
marvels of an almost youthful gladness 
in blessed Christan old age. But we may 
and can assert that he whose habits have 
been formed in a perpetual waiting upon 
God receives a hallowed unction of grace, 
which, so to speak, makes him young 
again, or, more properly, keeps him from 
waxing old within. In the most rapid 
survey, we have considered some of the 



*Isaiah. xlix., 31. 



causes which makes this season of life 
formidable. All ages have observed them; 
all philosophies have sought to destroy or 
lessen their force. The most accomplished 
of all Roman authors has left nothing 
more finished than his celebrated tract on 
Old Age (Cicero, De Senectuie). Short of 
the meridian beam of revelation and its 
reflections, nothing ever showed more 
nobly ; yet the ray of its consolations is 
but a beautiful moonlight. In vain is the 
venerable Cato introduced to teach us 
secrets which Cato never knew. In this 
gem-like treatise Cicero refers the troubles 
of age to four classes. Old age, so he tells 
us, is feared because (1.) it withdraws 
from the affairs of life; because (2.) it 
brings infirmity of body ; because (3.) it 
abridges or ends our pleasures ; and (4.) 
because it leads to death. Already, in 
treating of these several heads, much is 
said truly, ably, and, to a certain extent, 
satisfactorily, on the first and third topics, 
but on the last there is nothing but mel- 
ancholy conjecture. Even in regard to 
the other heads — of business, health, and 
pleasure — the suggestions are infinitely 
below those known by the humblest 
Christian rustic ; for w^hat did this great 
and eloquent Roman know of the oil 
which grace pours in the sinking and al- 
most expiring lamp ? 

RETIRING FROM BUSINESS. 

It is not to be denied, when we come 
with candor to the investigation, that, as 
a general truth, old age withdraws men 
from the employments of life, and seals 
up the active business years. In the great 
majority of instances, however, this retreat 
from labor is voluntarily sought long be- 
fore the access of grave infirmity. Indeed, 
in prosperous communities, many retire 
too early, under the chimerical hoj^e of 
enjoying an elegant repose, for which they 
have made no provision by mental culture 



JOO 



YOUTH RENEWED IN AGE. 



and discipline of moral habits. There is, 
it is true, another sort of recession from 
productive labors which we occasionally 
observe in old men, and which arises wholly 
from an unchastened selfishness. Let any 
one grow wealthy without the warming 
and expanding influences of benevolence, 
and he will more and more lose his inter- 
est in all that is going on in the world. 
Even wars and revolutions touch him only 
in their financial aspects, and the daily 
journal is to him not so much a courier 
of news as a barometer of loss and gain. 
Without religion, the circle becomes more 
contracted. Friends have departed, by 
scores if not by hundreds. What cares 
i.e for mighty movements in behalf of 
humanity and holiness around him? What 
cares he for posterity, the country, or the 
world, so that he can exalt his own gate, or 
die worth some round sum which floats be- 
fore him as his heaven ? In the same 
degree he wraps himself in his mantle, 
which is daily shrinking to his own poor 
dimensions. This is misery indeed. Take 
away the blessed sun, and every thing 
becomes wintry, frozen, all but dead ; take 
away more blessed love, and the heart is 
dumb, cheerless, insulated, meanly poor, 
so that the Latins named such a one Miser. 

AGED CHRISTIANS STILL IN ACTIVE LIFE. 

Let us leave him, shivering in his cave, 
overhung with icicles, and come out into 
the evening sunshine to consider the aged 
believer. He is like Mnason, " an old dis- 
ciple." He still learns. The Greek story 
tells us that when Solon lay dying, and 
overheard some conversation on philoso • 
phy in his apartment, he raised his head 
and said, " Let me share in your conver- 
sation, for, though I am dying, I would 
still be learning." Ten thousand times 
has this been more reasonably exemplified 
in dying Christians, who consider the 
whole of this life as but the lowest form 
of the school into which they have been 
entered. And in regard to activity, v/hile 
modes of service must vary with the bod- 



ily condition, we are bold to maintain that 
innumerable Christians now living are, in 
advanced life, impressing the whole engine 
of human affairs with as momentous a 
touch as at any previous stage of exist- 
ence. If there is wisdom, the proper jewel 
of age, and divine grace in its manifold 
actings, there need be no lacK of influence. 
They still lift up the eagle pinion, and 
soar in such greatness as belongs to their 
nature. But the point to which we would 
ask more marked attention is this, that 
the aged believer, so far from being sel- 
fishly dead to what is going on in the 
world, is more vigilant, and more in sym- 
pathy with all, than even in his days of 
youth. Blessed be God, we have seen this 
again and again. The man who waits on 
God, the man of faith and hope, the man 
of melting benevolence, looks through the 
loop-holes of retreat upon a world whose 
vast and often terrific revolutions interest 
him chiefly as included in a cycle of pro- 
vidential arrangements calculated to de- 
velop and exhibit the glory of grace. His 
heart beats responsive to these. The news 
of Christ's kingdom is as dear to him as 
when he was vehemently active in the 
field. He looks down the ages by the 
lamp of prophecy, and beholds events 
which will take place when he shall have 
been long in Paradise. This connects him 
with the cause of Christ on earth, and re- 
deems him from that miserable dungeon- 
like seclusion of soul which wastes away 
the aged worldling. So far is it from being 
true that these portraitures are figments 
of religious imagination, that we have 
been led to the choice of the subject by 
knowledge and recollection of this very 
paradox in actual example — to wit, ex- 
treme old age made light, strong, and happy 
by community of interest in the progressive 
triumplis of philanthropy and missions. 

THE SOUL MOUNTING TOWARDS THE SUN 
OP RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

When, according to the Talmudic fable, 
the eagle soars toward the sun, he renews 



101 



YOUTH RENEWED IN AGE. 



the plumage of his former days. As the 
serene disciple '^\'ithdraws himself from 
any personal agency in the entangling 
plans of life, he studies more profoundly 
what his Master is weaving into the web 
3f history. No longer young, he has a 
heart which gushes in sympathy with the 
young. He cheers them on. He places 
the weapons in their hands. He takes 
from the wall his sword, shield, and hel- 
met, and rejoices that God still has 
younger soldiers in the field. He lives 
his life over again in their achievements, 
and pictures to himself more signal vic- 
tories after he shall have gone. Like the 
wounded hero, AVolfe, he could even die 
more happy if the shout of victory should 
arouse his failing perception. Far from 
being shut up in morose, neglectful sel- 
fishness, he glories that God's cause still 
lives and must prevail. 

CHRISTIANITY A SYSTE^^I OF IXDEMNTiTIES. 

But, then, you retort, there is a sad in- 
firmity inseparable from old age. Piety, 
however exalted, will not remove this. 
Of all diseases, this is proverbially the 
most incurable. Brethren, we might take 
the high ground that godliness hath the 
promise of the life that now is ; that tem- 
perance and other virtues prolong life and 
avert disease; that the righteous shall 
"see good days;" and that religion is the 
best of all medicines. But, fearing lest 
we should be charged with exaggeration 
by the inexperienced, we will pitch our 
cause on a lower plane, and rest content 
with declaring that Christian confidence 
and hope confer a strength which is per- 
fectly compatible with all this bodily 
weakness, decay, and pain. Christianity, 
my readers, is a system of indemnities. 
It does not insure us exemj^tion from 
all losses, but it guarantees that these 
shall be more than made up to us. True, 
the grand indemnification is at the recom- 
pense of the resurrection. But preliba- 
tions of glory are poured into the earthly 
vessels of grace. The quickening charm is 



not natural, but supernatural. Mark, in 
the twenty-eighth verse, how the eternal 
increate fount of good is pointed out ; and 
learn how the fulness of God, through a 
Mediator, becomes the available supply 
of man. " Hast thou not knoAvn ? hast 
thou not heard, that the everlasting Godj 
Jehovah, the creator of the ends of the 
earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? 
There is no searching of his understand- 
ing. He giveth power to the faint." 
Here is human infirmity brought into 
connection with Omnipotence. Here is 
the solution of Paul's enigma, " When I 
am weak, then I am strong." Here is 
Christ's cordial to the aged, "My strength 
is made perfect in weakness." But let us 
return to our prophet. He represents 
even blooming adolescence as despond- 
ing, while the feeble are made powerful 
by faith. " Even the youths shall faint 
and be weary, and the young men shall 
utterly fall ; but they that wait on the 
Lord shall renew their strength." 

THE JOY OF THE LORD THE STRENGTH OF 
AGE. 

In the return from Babylon the oldest 
were saddest, for they remembered the 
glory of the first house. Xehemiah, 
therefore, had peculiar reference to them 
when he said to the weeping assembly, 
^' Xeither be ye sorry, for the joy of the 
Lord is your strength." Holy joy is a 
spring-head of renewed youthfulness. 
The efi'ects of grief and age are not un- 
like. How often have we seen a fi'iend 
go into the house of mourning young and 
come out old? Such was David's experi- 
ence (Psalm xxxii., 3) : " My bones waxed 
old, through my moaning all the day 
long ; for day and night thy hand was 
heavy upon me : my moisture is turned 
into the draught of summer." The cedars 
and palms of the sanctuary, planted in the 
house of the Lord, " shall still bring forth 
fruit in old age ; they shall be fat and 
flourishing" (Psalm xcii.). Make a soul 
thoroughly glad, and you make it young. 



102 



YOUTH RENEWED IN AGE, 



The effusion of divine joys has virtues to 
annul outward disabilities. For observe 
the perfect analogy of another passage 
concerning strength (Isaiah xxxv.) : 
" Strengthen ye the weak hands, and con- 
firm the feeble knees ; say to them that 
are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not ! " 
" Then shall the lame man leap as an 
hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall 
sing." Such is grace, superseding nature, 
conciliating contraries, making the feeble 
mighty, and giving youth to the aged. 
And oh how greatly would our experience 
and observation of the gift be increased 
if, with higher faith and expectation, we 
were waiting upon God ! 

The antechamber of the eternal abode 
is cold and appalhng to nature. This 
makes old age unwelcome to the unpre- 
pared. This causes the wretched shifts 
by which they avert the thought of doom. 
So successful is the delusion, that the 
man of seventy plans for to-morrow as 
if he were not already in many senses dead. 
No man is so old, says Cicero, but that he 
thinks he may live another day. And so 
from day to day, as by stepping-stones in 
the turbid stream, they totter on, till the 
Siudden fall plunges them into eternity. 

THE FEAR OF DEATH. 

The fear of death, which on the young 
sometimes works salutary reflection, often 
1 )ecomes to the aged a motive for abstract- 
ing the thoughts from the hateful subject, 
and so they think of something else, and 
are damned. I dare not undertake to say 
what may be the reflections of the old 
worldling when he lies down for the last 
struggle, and finds that eternity is dawn- 
ing on his soul, and yet that he has not 
made the least provision for meeting his 
God. But I know, for I have often seen, 
how strong in faith and hope may be the 
old age of the true Christian. After all, 
it is celestial hope which sheds the dew of 
youth on his silver locks. His posture is 
that of waiting, as watchers expect the 
dawn — " more than they that watch for 



the morning." Fresh blood seems to 
course through these outworn arteries as 
Hope waves the hand of indication toward 
perpetual spring and everlasting youth. 
Not in the mere elysian or Mohammedan 
sense, though we deny the attributes and 
enjoyments of that bodily complement of 
the soul which is to be raised in incorrup- 
tion, in glory, in power, a spiritual body. 
But the fresh breath of knowledge, of rea- 
son, of truth, therefore of beauty, of love, 
of universal holiness, is wafted from those 
gardens to the ancient believer, as he wor- 
ships, leaning on the top of his staff", and 
sojourns a little in the land of Beulah. 
We have sometimes seen, the clearness 
and vigor of former years come back. 
Call not that man old who is full of joys 
and hallelujahs, and who is eager to drop 
the clog, shuffle off the mortal coil, and 
soar like a bird set free from the snare oi 
the fowler. Call him old who is invet^ 
erate in sin; who never prays ; who dares 
not think of death ; who is without God 
and without hope, and on whose hoary 
bead no blessing ever descends. The Sim- 
eon who has Christ in his arms, has in him 
a well of water springing ; and so the true 
fountain of youth. All believing and sub- 
lime exercises of Christian experience have 
in them something as fresh as childhood. 
Once, when I was supporting a very 
aged believer from the house of God, he 
turned to me and said, " I never felt 
younger ; and I believe that promise is 
fulfilled in me, ' He satisfieth thy mouth 
with good things, so that thy youth is re- 
newed like the eagle's.' " This persua- 
sion, that true religion brings the soul into 
fellowship with all that is free, hopeful, 
and advancing in earth, and all that is 
bright and perfect in heaven, led the most 
distinguished of late German theologians. 
Schleiermacher, to say, in the close of a long 
life, " The true Christian is always young." 

THE SUBURBS OF HEAVEX. 

The racy old English of John Bunyan 
best sets forth this stage of pilgrimage. 



103 



YOUTH RENEWED IN AGE. 



Here they heard continually the singing 
of birds, and saw every day the flowers 
appear in the earth, and heard the voice 
of the turtle in the land, in this coun- 
try the sun shineth night and day. Here 
they were within sight of the city they 
were going to : also they met some of the 
inhabitants thereof; for in this land the 
shining ones commonly walked, be- 
cause it was upon the borders of 
heaven. In this land also, the con 
tract between the Bride and Bride- 
groom was renewed; yea, here, "as the 
bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so 
doth their God rejoice over them." My 
beloved brethren, we must be submissive 
to God's will, even if such an evening of 
life be not vouchsafed to us. Yet I will 
maintain that it is of the nature of Chris- 
tianity to produce such joys. The excep- 
tions are not from grace, but from disturb- 
ing causes in our partially unsanctified 
hearts. Waiting on God is directly pro- 
motive of fresh and heavenly strength. 
The long-continued practice and rooted 
habit of waiting upon God, in confidence 
and expectation, are the best preparative 
for a serene decline aAd a happy end. 

THE worldling's NOTION OF DEATH. 

If the sentiment of the world may be 
safely judged from its reflection in the 
mirror of the fictitious literature which is 
seized with most avidity and reproduced 
in the greatest number of languages, then 
unquestionably the opinion is that there 
is no happiness in evangelical piety, and 
an old age of religion is one of sourness, 
vindictiveness, and misanthropic woe. 
Let the picture of a Christian matron be 
painted by the matchless pencil of one 
whose misfortune it must have been never 
to have beheld the original, and with 
whom devotion and hypocrisy are the 
same, and the lineaments are such as 
these : " Great need had the rigid woman 
of her mystical religion, veiled in gloom 
and darkness, with lightnings of curs- 
ing, vengeance, and destruction flashing 



through the sable clouds." I quote from 
the ignorant and malignant travesty of 
Christian old age, which mars the most 
widely current story of the hour ; and I 
quote it because it will meet response in 
hundreds of thousands who need the 
grace of Christ to avert these very storm- 
clouds of declining day. Let a holier 
literature prevail in the refined world — a 
literature which shall honor holy wedlock, 
family religion, and the Church of Christ 
-^and we shall behold other portraitures 
of the wife or the widow upon whom 
evangelical truth has shed its dews of 
eventide, james w. Alexander, d. d. 



GROWING GRAY. 

A LITTLE more toward the light. 
Me Tniserum. Here's one that's white, 
And one that's turning ; 
Adieu to song and " salad days." 
My Muse, let's go at once to Jay's 
And order mourning. 

We must reform our rhymes, my dear, 
Renounce the gay for the severe, — 

Be grave, not witty ; 
We have no more the right to find 
That Pyrrha's hair is neatly twined. 

That Chloe's pretty. 

Young love's for us a farce that's played j 
Light canzonet and serenade 

'No more may tempt us ; 
Gray hairs but ill accord with dreams ; 
From aught but sour didactic themes 

Our years exempt us. 

" A la bonne heure ! " You fancy so ? 
You think for one white streak we grow 

At once satiric ? 
A fiddlestick ! Each hair's a string 
To which our graybeard Muse shall sing 

A younger lyric. 

Our heart's still sound. Shall " cakes and ale " 
Grow rare to youth because we rail 

At school-boy dishes ? 
Perish the thought ! 'Tis ours to sing, 
Though neither Time nor Tide can bring 

Belief with wishes. 

AUSTIN DOBSOK. 



104 



MAY YOU DIE AMONG YOUR KINDRED. 



TT T is a sad thing to feel that we must 
•^ die away from our home. Tell not 
the invalid who is yearning after his dis- 
tant country, that the atmosphere around 
him is soft ; that the gales are filled with 
balm, and the flowers are springing from 
the green earth ; he knows that the softest 
air to his heart would be the air which 
hangs over his native land ; that more 
grateful than all the gales of the south 
would breathe the low whispers of anx- 
ious affection ; that the very icicles cling- 
ing to his own eaves, and the snow beat- 
ing against his own windows, would be 
far more pleasant to his eyes than the 
bloom and verdure which only more for- 
cibly remind him how far he is from that 
one spot which is dearer to him than the 



world beside. He may indeed find esti- 
mable friends, who will do all in their 
power to promote his comfort and assuage 
his pains; but they cannot supply the 
place of the long known and the long 
loved ; they cannot read as in a book the 
mute language of his face ; they have not 
learned to wait upon his habits, and an- 
ticipate his wants; and as he has not 
learned to communicate, without hesita- 
tion, all his wishes, impressions, and 
thoughts to them, he feels that he is a 
stranger ; and a more desolate feeling than 
that could not visit his soul. How much 
is expressed by that form of Oriental 
benediction, May you die among your 
kindred, 

GREENWOOD. 



THE OLD MAN'S FUNERAL. 



I SAW an aged man upon his bier, 
His hair was thin and white, and on his 
brow 
A. record of the cares of many a year; 

Cares that were ended and forgotten now. 
And there was sadness round, and faces 

bowed, 
And woman's tears fell fast, and children 
wailed aloud. 

Then rose another hoary man and said. 
In faltering accents, to that weeping train. 

Why mourn ye that our aged friend is dead ? 
Ye are not sad to see the gathered grain ; 

Nor when their mellow fruit the orchards cast> 

Nor when the yellow woods shake down the 
ripened mast. 

Ye sigh not when the sun, his course fulfilled. 
His glorious course, rejoicing earth and sky, 

In the soft evening, when the winds are stilled, 
Sinks where his islands of refreshment lie. 

And leaves the smile of his departure, spread 

O'er the warm-colored heaven and ruddy 
mountain head. 



Why weep ye then for him, who, having won 
The bound of man's appointed years, at 
last, 
Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's labors done, 

Serenely to his final rest has passed ; 
While the soft memory of his virtues yet 
Lingers like twilight hues, when the bright 
sun is set ? 

His youth was innocent ; his riper age 

Marked with some act of goodness every 
day; 
And watched by eyes that loved him, calm 
and sage. 
Faded his late declining years away. 
Cheerful he gave his being up, and went 
To share the holy rest that waits a life well 
spent. 

Thali life was happy ; every day he gave 
Thanks for the fair existence that was his, 

For a sick fancy made him not her slave, ' 
To mock him witn her phantom miseries. 

No chronic tortures racked his aged limb, 

For luxury and sloth had nourished none for 
him. 



105 



THE OLD MAN'S FUNERAL 



And I am glad that he has lived thus long, 
And glad that he has gone to his reward ; 
Nor deem that kindly nature did him wrong, 

Softly to disengage the \dtal cord. 
When his weak hand grew palsied, and his 

eye 
Dark with the mists of age, it was his time to 
die. 

WILLIAM C. BRYANT. 



o 



HEAVEN-NOT FAR AWAY. 

H, heaven is nearer than mortals think, 
When they look with trembling dread 
At the misty future that stretches on. 
From the silent home of the dead. 



'Tis no lonely isle on a boundless main, 

ISTo brilliant, but distant shore, 
Where the lovely ones who are called away, 

Must go to return no more. 

No, heaven is near us ; the mighty veil 

Of mortality blinds the eye. 
That we cannot see the angel bands 

On the shores of eternity. 

The eye that shuts in a dying hour, 

Will open the next ia bliss ; 
The welcome will sound in the heavenly world 

Ere the farewell is hushed in this. 

We pass from the clasp of mourning friends, 
To the arms of the loved and lost ; 

And those smiling faces will greet us there, 
Which on earth we have valued most. 

Yet oft in the hours of holy thought, 

To the thirsting soul is given, 
ITiatpower to pierce through the mist of sense, 

To the beauteous scenes of heaven. 



NEARNESS OF HEAVEN. 

t|HE nearness of heaven is suggested 
by the epithet " veil." Christians, 
"^^ there is only a veil between us 
and heaven ! A veil is the thin- 
nest and frailest of all conceivable parti- 
tions. It is but a fine tissue, a delicate 
fabric of embroidery. It waves in the 
wind ; the touch of a child may stir it, 
and accident may rend it ; the silent ac- 



tion of time will moulder it away. The 
veil that conceals heaven is only our em- 
bodied existence, and, though fearfully 
and wonderfully made, it is only wrought 
out of our frail mortality. So slight is it 
that the puncture of a thorn, the touch 
of an insect's sting, the breath of an in- 
fected atmosphere, may make it shake 
and fall. In a bound, in a moment, in 
the twinkling of an eye, in the throb of a 
pulse, in the flash of a thought, we may 
start into disembodied spirits, glide una- 
bashed into the company of great and 
mighty angels, pass into the light and 
amazement of eternity, know the great 
secret, gaze upon splendors which flesh 
and blood could not sustain, and which 
no words lawful for man to utter could 
describe ! Brethren in Christ, there is but 
a step between you and death ; between 
you and heaven there is but a veil. 

C. STANFORD. 



GAIN OF DYING. 

THROUGHOUT the Bible it is de- 
clared that the things that we are 
permitted to see in this life are 
but imitations, glimpses of what 
we shall see hereafter. ^' It doth not yet 
appear what we shall be." There are 
times when it seems as though our cir- 
cumstances, our nature, all the processes 
of our being, conspired to make us joy- 
ful here, yet the apostle says we now see 
" through a glass darkly." What, then, 
must be the vision wdiich we shall behold 
when we go to that place above where we 
shall see face to face ? What a land of 
glory have you sent your babies into! 
What a land of delight have you sent 
your children and companions into I 
What a land of blessedness are you your- 
selves coming to by-and-by ! Men talk 



106 



GAIN OF DYING, 



about dying as though it was going to- 
ward a desolate place. All the past in a 
man's life is down liill and toward gloom, 
and all the future of man's life is up hill 
and toward glorious sunrising. There is 
but one luminous point, and that is the 
home toward which we are tending, above 
all storms, above all sin and peril. Dying 
is glorious crowning ; living is yet toiling. 
If God be yours, all things are yours. 
Live while you must, yet yearn for the 
day of consummation, when the door 
shall be thrown open, and the bird may 
fly out of his netted cage, and be heard 
singing in higher spheres and diviner 
realms. 



earth by making them types of heaven. 
As a home tlie believer delights to think 
of it. Thus, when lately bending over a 
dying saint, and expressing our sorrow to 
see him lay so low, with the radiant coun- 
tenance rather of one who had just left 
heaven than of one about to enter it, he 
raised and clasped his hands, and ex- 
claimed in ecstasy, '^ I am going home." 



THOMAS GUTHRIB. 



H. W. BEECHER. 



GOING OUT AND COMING IN. 




HEAVEN A HOME. 

OME ! oh, how sweet is that 
word! what beautiful and 
tender associations cluster 
thick around it; compared 
with it, house, mansion, palace are cold, 
heartless terms. But home! that word 
quickens the pulse, warms the heart, stirs 
the soul to its depths, makes age feel 
young again, rouses apathy into energy, 
sustains the sailor in his midnight watc4i, 
inspires the soldier with courage on the 
field of battle, and imparts patient endur- 
ance to the worn-down sons of toil. The 
thought of it has proved a seven-fold 
shield to virtue ; the very name of it has 
a spell to call back the wanderer from the 
paths of vice ; and far away, where myr- 
tles bloom, and palm-trees wave, and the 
ocean sleeps upon coral strands, to the 
exile's fond fancy it clothes the naked 
rock, or stormy shore, or barren moor, oi* 
wild highland mountain with charms he 
weeps to think of, and longs once more to 
see. Grace sanctifies these lovely affections, 
and imparts a sacredness to the homes of 



N that home was joy and sorrow, where 
an infant first drew breath, 

While an aged sire was drawing near 
unto the gates of death. 
His feeble pulse was failing and his eye was 

growing dim — 
He was standing on the threshold when they 

brought the babe to him : 
While to murmur forth a blessing on the little 

one he tried, 
In his trembling arms he raised it, pressed it 

to his lips — and died ! 
An awful darkness resteth on the path they 

both begin, 
Who thus meet upon the threshold — Going out 

and Coming in ! 

Going out unto the triumph, coming in unto 

the fight ; 
Coming in unto the darkness, going out unto 

the light, — 
Although the shadow deepened in the moment 

of eclipse, 
When he passed through the dread portal with 

a blessing on his lips : 
And to him who bravely conquers as he con- 
quered in the strife, 
Life is but the way of dying, death is but the 

gate of life. 
Yet awful darkness resteth ou the path we all 

begin, 
AVhen we meet upon the threshold — Going 

out and Coming in. 



ISA CRAIG KNOX. 



107 



..>^^=^<=^ 

-^ PRAYER AGAINST THE FEAR OF DEATH. <^ 



OMOST gracious and merciful Father, 
give me grace to be always ready to 
obey tliy summons, and willing to 
depart this life when thou callest. 
Forgive me all my sins, which are the 
sting of death, that I may prepare to meet 
it as a harmless thing that can not hurt 
me — as a release from those weaknesses 
and sorrows which render my life a bur- 
den to me. Keep me from being all my 
days in bondage to the fear of death. Let 
not my spirit be broken with dreadful ap- 
prehensions of dying under the frown of 
thy displeasure ; but make me to remem- 
ber thy infinite mercies, the inexhaustible 
treasures of thy goodness and clemency, 
so that the consideration thereof may for- 
tify my mind against the horrors of a 



dying hour. Strengthen me with a com- 
fortable hope in thee, a steadfast faith in 
thy Son's atoning blood, and the power of 
his resurrection. He has changed death 
into a sleep, and has promised to make 
the risen bodies of believers like unto his 
own glorified body. Enable me to ex- 
claim with the triumphant apostle, "0 
death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where 
is thy victory ? Thanks be to God who 
giveth us the victory, through our Lord 
Jesus Christ." Let me, therefore, no lon- 
ger be afraid of that which, through thy 
mercy, will be a happy passage into thy 
kingdom — the gate of everlasting bliss and 
glory. This I beg, through the merits of 
him who is the resurrection and the life. 
Amen. 




NEARING THE GATES. 



OkT^ fc'OW, while they were thus drawing 
JX tow^ards the gates, behold a com- 
Awri pany of the .heavenly host came 
^ out to meet them, to whom it 
was said by the other tw^o shining ones, 
" These are the men that have loved our 
Lord when they were in the world, and 
that have left all for his holy name, 
and he hath sent us to fetch them, and we 
have brought them thus far on their de- 
sired journey, that they may go in and 
look their Redeemer in the face with 



joy." 

And now were these two men, as it 
were, in heaven before they came at it, 
being swallowed up with a sight of angels, 
and with hearing of their melodious notes. 



.... But above all, tht >arm and joy- 
ful thoughts that they had about their own 
dwelling there with such company, and 
that forever and ever — oh ! by what 
tongue or pen can these glorious joys be 
expressed? .... 

Now, just as the gates were opened to 
let in the men, I looked in after them^ 
and behold, the city shone like the sun J 
the streets were also paved with gold, and 
in them w^alked many men with crowns 
on their heads, palms in their hands, and 
golden harps to sing praises withal. And 
after that they shut up the gates, which 
when I had seen, I wished myself amongst 
them. 



JOHN BUNYAN. 



108 



THE SHORE OF ETERNITY. 




LONE! to land alone 

upon that shore, 

With no one sight 

that we have seen 

before ; 

Things of a different 

hue, 
And the sounds all 

new. 
And fragrances so 
sweet the soul may faint, 
Alone I Oh, that first hour of being a saint ! 

Alone ! to land alone upon that shore, 
On which no wavelets lisp, no billows roar, 

Perhaps no shape of ground, 

Perhaps no sight or sound, 
No forms of earth our fancies to arrange — 
But to begin alone that mighty change ! 

Alone ! to land alone upon that shore. 
Knowing so well we can return no more ; 

No voice or face of friend. 

None with us to attend 
Our disembarking on that awful strand, 
But to arrive alone in such a land ! 

Alone ! to land alone upon that shore ! 
To begin alone to live forevermore, 

To have no one to teach 

The manners of the speech 
Of that new life, or put us at our ease ; 
Oh that we might die in pairs or companies ! 

Alone ? the God we know is on that shore. 
The God of whose attractions we know more 

Than of those who may appear 

Nearer and dearest here ; 
Oh, is He not the life-long friend we know 
More privately than any friend below ? 

Alone ? the God we trust is on that shore. 
The Faithful One whom we have trusted more 

In trials and in woes 

Than we have trusted those 
On whom we leaned most in our earthly strife ; 
Oh, we shall trust Him more in that new life ! 

Alone ? the God we love is on that shore — 
Love not enough, yet whom we love far more, 

And whom we loved all through 

And with a love more true 
Than other loves — yet now shall love Him 

more : 
True love of Him begins upon that shore I 



So not alone we land upon that shore ; 
'Twill be as though we had been there before; 

We shall meet more we know 

Than we can meet below. 
And find our rest like some returning love. 
And be at home at once with our Eternal 
Love! 

F . W . F A B E R. , 



NEARING HEAVEN. 

WE read that, in certain climates of 
the world, the gales that spring 
from the land carry a refreshing 
smell out to sea, and assure the watchful 
pilot that he is approaching a desirable 
and fruitful coast, when as yet he can not 
discern it with his eyes. And to take up 
the comparison of life to a voyage, in like 
manner it fares with those who have stead- 
ily and religiously pursued the course 
which heaven pointed out to them. We 
shall sometimes find, by their conversation 
towards the end of their days, that they 
are filled with peace, and hope, and joy, 
which, like refreshing gales and reviving 
odors to the seamen, are breathed forth 
from Paradise upon their souls, and give 
them to understand with certainty that 
God is bringing them into the desired 
haven. j. townson. 



THE REUNION. 

ITS it was the first Adam that broke 
M creation into fragments, so it is the 
I second Adam that is to restore cre- 
ation in all its parts and regions, and 
make it into one again. The good and 
the evil then are parted forever, but the 
good are brought into perfect oneness — a 
oneness so complete, so abiding, as more 
than to com})ensate for brokenness and 
separation here. 

The soul and body come together and 
form one glorified man. The tea thou- 



109 



THE REUNION. 



sand members of the church come together 
and form one glorified church. The scat- 
tered stones come together and form one 
living temple. The Bride and Bride- 
groom meet. Here it has been one Lord, 
one faith, one baptism ; there it shall be 
one body, one bride, one vine, one temple, 
one family, one city, one kingdom. 

The broken fruitfulness^ the fitful in- 
constancy of the cursed earth, shall pass 
into the unbroken beauty of the new cre- 
ation. The discord of the troubled ele- 
ments shall be laid, and harmony return. 
The warring animals shall lie down in 
peace. 

Then shall heaven and earth come 
together into one. That which we call 
distance is annihilated, and the curtain 
drawn by sin is withdrawn from between 
the upper and lower glory, and the fields 
of a paradise that was never lost are 
brought into happy neighborhood with 
the fields of paradise regained, God's pur- 
pose developing itself in the oneness of a 
twofold glory — the rulers and the ruled, the 
risen and the unrisen, the celestial and the 
terrestrial, the glory that is in the heaven 
above, the glory that is in the earth be- 
neath ; for " there are celestial bodies and 
bodies terrestrial, but the glory of the 
celestial is one, and the glory of the ter- 
restrial is another.'^ 

Such scenes we need to dwell upon, 
that, as our tribulations abound, so also 
our consolations may abound. Our 
wounds here are long in healing. Be- 
reavements keep the heart long bleeding. 
Melancthon, with a tender simplicity so 
like himself, refers to his feelings when 
his child was taken from hira by death. 
He wept as he recalled the past. It 
pierced his soul to remember the time 
once, as he sat weeping, his little one with 
its napkin wiped the tears from his 
cheeks. 



Recollections like these haunt us 
through life, ever and anon newly brought 
up by passing scenes. Some summer 
morning's sun recalls, with stinging fresh- 
ness, the hour when that same sun stream- 
ed in through our window upon a dying 
infant's cradle, as if to bring out all the 
beauty of the parting smile, and engrave 
it upon our hearts forever. Or it is a 
funeral scene that cometh to memory — 
a funeral scene that had but a few days 
before been a bridal one — and never on 
earth can we forget the outburst of our 
grief when we saAV the bridal flowers laid 
upon the new-made tomb. Or some 
wintry noon recalls the time and scene 
when we laid a parent's dust within its 
resting-place, and left it to sleep in win- 
ter's grave of snows. These memories 
haunt us, pierce us, and make us feel 
what a desolate place this is, and what an 
infinitely desirable thing it would be to 
meet these lost ones again, where the 
meeting shall be eternal. 

Hence the tidings of this reunion in 
the many mansions are like home-greet- 
ings. They relieve the smitten heart. 
They bid us be of good cheer, for the 
separation is but brief, and the meeting 
to which we look forward will be the 
happiest ever enjoyed. The time of sor- 
rowful recollections will soon pass, and 
no remembrance remain but that which 
will make our joy to overflow. 

Every thing connected v/ith this re- 
union is fitted to enhance its blessedness. 
To meet again any where, or any how, or 
at any time, would be blessed ; how much 
more at such a time, in such circumstances, 
and in such a home ! The dark past lies 
behind us like a prison from which we 
have come forth, or like a wreck from 
which we have escaped in safety and 
landed in a quiet haven. We meet where 
separation is an imposibility, where dis- 



110 



THE REUNION. 



tance no more tries fidelity, or pains the 
spirit, or mars the joy of loving. We 
meet in a kingdom. AVe meet at a mar- 
riage-table. AVe meet in the " prepared 
city," the new Jerusalem. AVe meet 
under the shadow of the tree of life, and on 
the banks of the river of life. We meet to 
keep festival and sing the songs of triumph. 
It was blessed to meet here for day ; 
how much more to meet in the kingdom 
forever ! It was blessed to meet, even 
with the parting full in view ; how much 
more so w^hen no such cloud overhangs 
our future ! It was blessed to meet in 
the wilderness and the land of graves ; 
how much more in paradise, and in the 
land where death enters not ! It was 
blessed to meet "in the night,'' though 
chill and dark ; how much more in the 
morning, when light has risen, and the 
troubled sky is cleared, and joy is spread- 
ing itself around us like a new atmosphere 
from which every element of sorrow has 
disappeared I 



HORATIUS BONAR 




REUNION IN HEAVEN. 

jEAVEN is not a solitude ; it 
is a peopled city, a city in 
w^hich there are no strangers, 
no homeless, no poor, where 
one does not pass another in 
the street without greeting, 
where no one is envious of another's min- 
strelsy or of another's more brilliant crown. 
When God said in the ancient Eden, *^ It 
is not good for man to be alone," there 
was a deeper signification in the words 
than could be exhausted or explained by 
the family tie. It was the declaration of 
an essential want which the Creator in His 
highest wisdom has impressed upon the 
noblest of His works. That is not life — 
you don't call that life — where the hermit 



in ^ome moorland glade drags out a soli- 
tary existence, or where the captive in 
some cell of bondage frets and pines un- 
seen? That man docs not understand 
solitude. 

Life, all kinds of life, tends to compan- 
ionship, and rejoices in it, from the larvse 
and buzzing insect cloud up to the kingly 
lion and the kinglier man. It is a social 
state into which we are to be introduced, 
as well as a state of consciousness. Not 
only therefore, does the Saviour pray for 
His disciples, "Father, I will that those 
whom thou hast given me be with me 
where I am, that they may behold my 
glory," but those who are in that heavenly 
recompense are said to have come " to the 
general assembly and church of the first- 
born written in heaven." Aye, and better 
than that, and dearer to some of us, " to 
the spirits of just men made perfect." 

The question of the recognition of de- 
parted friends in heaven, and special and 
intimate reunion with them. Scripture and 
reason enable us to infer with almost abso- 
lute certainty. It is implied in the fact 
that the resurrection is a resurrection of 
indivduals, that it is this mortal that shall 
put on immortality. It is implied in the 
fact that heaven is a vast and happy soci- 
ety; and it is implied in the fact that 
there is no underclothing of nature that we 
possess, only the clothing upon it of the 
garments of a brighter and more glorious 
immortality. 

Take comfort, then, those of you in 
whose history the dearest charities of life 
have been severed by the rude hand of 
death, those whom you have thought about 
as lost are not lost, except to present sight. 
Perhaps even now they are angel watch- 
ers, screened by a kindly Providence from 
everything about, that would give you 
pain; but if you and they are alike, in 
Jesus, and remain faithful to the end, 



111 



REUNION IN HEAVEN 



doubt not that you shall know them again. 
It were strange, don't you think, if amid 
the multitude of earth's ransomed ones 
that we are to see in heaven, we should 
see all but those we most fondly and fer- 
vently long to see ? Strange, if in some 
of our walks along the golden streets, 
we never happen to light upon them? 
Strange, if we did not hear some heaven 
song, learned on earth, trilled by some 
clear ringing voice that we have often 
heard before? wm. morley punshon. 



OVER THE RIVER. 

□ VER the river they beckon to me, 
Loved ones who've crossed to the 
farther side, 
The gleam of their snowy robes I see, 
But their voices are lost in the dashing tide. 
There 's one with ringlets of sunny gold, 
And eyes the reflection of heaven's own 
blue; 
He crossed in the twilight gray and cold, 
And the pale mist hid him from mortal 
view. 
We saw not the angels who met him there, 

The gates of the city we could not see : 
Over the river, over the river. 
My brother stands waiting to welcome me. 

Over the river the boatman pale 

Carried another, the household pet ; 
Her brown curls waved in the gentle gale, 

Darling Minnie ! I see her yet. 
She crossed on her bosom her dimpled hands, 

And fearlessly entered the phantom bark ; 
We felt it glide from the silver sands, 

And all our sunshine grew strangely dark ; 
We know she is safe on the farther side, 

Where all the ransomed and angels be : 
Over the river, the mystic river. 

My childhood's idol is waiting for me. 

For none return from those quiet shores, 
Who cross with the boatman cold and pale ; 

We hear the dip of the golden oars, 
And catch a gleam of the snowy sail ; 

And lo I they have passed from our yearning 
heart. 
They cross the stream and are gone for aye ; 



We may not sunder the veil apart 
That hides from our vision the gates of day; 

We only know that their barks no more 
May sail with us o'er life's stormy sea ; 

Yet somewhere, I know, on the unseen shorOj 
They watch, and beckon, and wait for me. 

And I sit and think, when the sunset's gold 

Is flushing river and hill and shore, 
I shall one day stand by the water cold, 

And list for the sound of the boatman's 
oar; 
I shall watch for a gleam of the flapping sail, 

I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand, 
I shall pass from sight with the boatman pale 

To the better shore of the spirit-land. 
I shall know the loved who have gone before, 

And joyfully sweet will the meeting be, 
When over the river, the peaceful river, 

The angel of death shall carry me. 

NANCY PRIEST WAKEFIELD. 




FRIENDSHIPS IN HEAVEN. 

AN is con- 
stituted to 
be happy 
in society. 
Place him 
in solitude, 
and, how- 
ever excit- 
ing and fe- 
licitous are 
his circum- 
stances in other respects, he will wither 
and pine away. But above, we shall be 
with many that shall come from the east 
and west, and north and south, and shall 
sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 
The entire heaven of angels, and the whole 
host of the redeemed, we shall have sweet 
and improving fellowship with forever! 
The wise and the good, the great and the 
pure, the benevolent and active, from every 
region, will be our companions and asso- 
ciates, with whom we shall live, and loYe^ 



112 



FRIENDSHIPS IN HEAVEN. 



and know, and obey, through one eter- 
nally enduring day. Of all the afflictions 
to which we are liable, there is none so 
painful as the death of our friends. And 
oh I what a consoling balm is the doctrine 
that we shall, in the realms above, be re- 
stored to their fellowship. This doctrine 
is involved in many passages of Scripture : 
in the account of the last judgment day — 
in the language of David on the occasion 
of the death of his infant child by Bath- 
sheba — in the parable of the rich man and 
Lazarus — in the consolation which our 
Saviour gives to the penitent sinner on the 
cross — in the assurance administered by 
the apostle St. Paul to the Thessalonian 
believers, that they should be his joy and 



crown of rejoicing in the presence of our 
Lord Jesus Christ at his coming, and in 
the same apostle forbidding them to sor- 
row for such as had fallen asleep as though 
they had no hope of being united with 
them, and of being together with the Lord 
— and in the general use which the sacred 
writers make of the word sleep for death, 
a simile which would be flagrantly incor- 
rect if our recollections our friendships 
and affections, were not renewed in a fu- 
ture state. And, in general, the same 
doctrine is taught also through the whole 
book of the Kevelations of St. John. 
Happy prospect, that exalts friendship 
into religion ! What blest society there 
will be above! j. beaumont. 



■ « .,. *.. PARADISE. - . " » ■ 







PARADISE I O Paradise! 

Who doth not crave for rest ? 
Who would not seek the happy land, 
Where they that loved are blest ? 
Where loyal hearts, and true, 

Stand ever in the light, 
All rapture through and through, 
In God's most holy sight. 

O Paradise I O Paradise ! 

The world is growing old ; 
Who would not be at rest and free 
Where love is never cold, 

Where loyal hearts, and true, 

Stand ever in the light. 
All rapture through and through. 
In God's most holy sight? 

O Paradise ! O Paradise ! 

Wherefore doth death delay, 
Bright death, that is the welcome dawn 
Of our eternal day. 

Where loyal hearts, and true, 

Stand ever in the light. 
All rapture through and through, 
In God's most holy sight ? 



8b 



Paradise ! O Paradise! 
'Tis w'eary waiting here : 

1 long to be where Jesus is, 
To feel, to see Him near ; 

Where loyal hearts, and true. 

Stand ever in the light. 
All rapture through and through. 

In God's most holy sight. 

Paradise ! Paradise I 
I want to sin no more ; 

1 want to be as pure on earth 
As on thy spotless shore ; 

Where loyal hearts, and true. 

Stand ever in the light. 
All rapture through and through, 

In God's most holy sight. 

O Paradise I O Paradise ! 

I greatly long to see 
The special place my dearest Lord 
Is destining for me ; 

Where loyal hearts, and true. 

Stand ever in the light. 
All rapture through and through, 
In God's most holy sight. 

FREDERICK WILLIAM FAUER, 



113 



.^ THE NEW JERUSALEM ; ^^ 



OR. THE SOUL'S BREATHING AFTER THE HEAVENLY COUNTRY. 




** Since Christ's fair truth needs no man's art, 
Take this rude song in better part." 

MOTHER dear, Jerusalem, 
When shall I come to thee 
When shall my sorrows have 
end — 

Thy joys when shall I see ? 
happy harbor of God's saints ! 

O sweet and pleasant soil ! 
In thee no sorrows can be founds 
No grief, no care, no toil. 

In thee no sickness is at all, 

No hurt nor any sore ; 
There is no death nor ugly night, 

But life for evermore. 
No dimming cloud o'ershadows thee, 

No cloud nor darksome night, 
But every soul shines as the sun— 

For God himself gives light. 

There lust and lucre cannot dwell, 

There envy bears no sway ; 
There is no hunger, thirst, nor heat 

But pleasures every way. 
Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! 

Would God I were in thee ! 
Oh ! that my sorrows had an end, 

Thy joys that I might see ! 

No pains, no pangs, no grieving grief, 

No woeful night is there ; 
No sigh, no sob, no cry is heard — 

No well-away, no fear. 
Jerusalem the city is 

Of God our King alone ; 
Tlie Lamb of God, the light thereof. 

Sits there upon His throne. 

God ! that I Jerusalem 

With speed may go behold ! 
For why ? the pleasures there abound 

Which here cannot be told. 
Thy turrets and thy pinnacles 

With carbuncles do shine — 
With Jasper, pearl, and chrysolite. 

Surpassing pure and fine. 

Thy houses are of ivory, 
Thy windows crystal clear, 



? 
an 



Thy streets are laid with beaten gold- 
There angels do appear. 

Thy walls are made of precious stone, 
Thy bulwarks diamond square, 

Thy gates are made of orient pearl — 
God ! if I were there ! 

Within thy gates nothing can come 

That is not passing clean ; 
No spider's web, no dirt, nor dust ; 

No filth may there be seen. 
Jehovah, Lord, now come away, 

And end my griefs and plaints — 
Take me to Thy Jerusalem, 

And place me with Thy saints ! 

Who there are crown'd with glory great. 

And see God face to face. 
They ^-riumph still, and aye rejoice — 

Most happy is their case. 
But we that are in banishment 

Continually do moan ; 
We sigh, we mourn, we sob, we weep-* 

Perpetually w** groan. 

Our sweetness mixed is with gall. 

Our pleasures are but pain, 
Our joys not worth the looking on, 

Our sorrows aye remain. 
But there they live in such delight. 

Such pleasure and such play. 
That unto them a thousand years 

Seems but as yesterday. 

O my sweet home, Jerusalem ! 

Thy joys when shall I see — 
The King sitting upon His throne. 

And thy felicity ? 
Thy ^dneyards, and thy orchards, 

So wonderfully rare, 
Are furnish 'd with all kinds of fruit. 

Most beautifully fair. 

Thy gardens and thy goodly walks 

Continually are green ; 
There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers 

As nowhere else are seen. 
There cinnamon and sugar grow. 

There nard and balm abound ; 
No tongue can tell, no heart can think, 

The pleasures there are found. 
114 



THE NEW JERUSALEM, 



There nectar and ambrosia spring — 

There music's ever sweet ; 
There many a fair and dainty thing 

Is trod down under feet. 
Quite through the streets, with pleasant sound. 

The flood of life doth flow; 
Upon the banks on every side 

The trees of life do grow. 



These trees each month yield ripened 

For evermore they spring ; 
And all the nations of the world 

To thee their honors bring. 
Jerusalem, God's dwelling-place, 

Full sore I long to see ; 
Oh ! that my sorrows had an end, 

That I might dwell in thee! 
% 

There David stands with harp in hand, 

As master of the choir ; 
A thousand times that man were blest 

That might his music hear. 
There Mary sings " Magnificat," 

With tones surpassing sweet; 
And all the virgins bear their part. 

Singing about her feet. 

"Te Deum " doth St. Ambrose sing, 
St. Austin doth the like; 

Old Simeon and Zacharie 
Have not their songs to seek. 

There Magdalene hath left her moan, 
And cheerfully doth sing, 

With all the blest saints whose harmony- 
Through every street doth ring. 

Jerusalem \ Jerusalem ! 

Thy joys fain would I see ; 
Come quickly, Lord, and end my grie^ 

And take me home to Thee ; 
Oh ! paint Thy name on my forehead, 

And take me hence away, 
That I may dwell with Thee in bliss, 

And sing Thy praises aye. 

Jerusalem, the happy home 

Jehovah's throne on high I 
sacred city, queen, and wife 

Of Christ eternally ! 
O comely queen with glory clad, 

With honor and degree, 
All fair thou art, exceeding bright^ 

No spot there is in thee I 



fruit— 



I long to see Jerusalem, 
The comfort of us all ; 

For thou art fair and beautiful— 
J^one ill can thee befall. 

In thee, Jerusalem, I say, 
No darkness dare appear — 

No night, no shade, no winter foul- 
No time doth alter there. 

No candle needs, no moon to shine, 

No glittering star to light ; 
For Christ, the King of righteousness, 

For ever shineth bright. 
A Lamb unspotted, white and pur> 

To Thee doth stand in lieu 
Of light— so great the glory is 

Thine heavenly King to view. 

He is the King of kings, beset 

In midst His servants' sight ; 
And they, His happy household all, 

Do serve him day and night. 
There, there the choir of angels sing— 

There the supernal sort 
Of citizens, which hence are rid 

From dangers deep, do sport. 

There be the prudent prophets all. 

The apostles six and six, 
The glorious martyrs in a row. 

And confessors betwixt. 
There doth the crew of righteous men 

And matrons all consist — 
Young men and maids that here on earth 

Their pleasures did resist. 

The sheep and lambs that hardly 'scaped 

The snare of death and hell, 
Triumph in joy eternally, 

Whereof no tongue can tell ; 
And though the glory of each one 

Doth difi'er in degree, 
Yetisthejoy of all alike 

And common, as we see 

There love and charity do reign. 

And Christ is all in all, 
Whom they most perfectly behold 

In joy celestial. 
They love, they praise— they praise, thev lovwt 

They "Holy, holy" cry; ^ 

They neither toil, nor faint, nor end. 

But laud continually. 

Oh I happy thousand times were I, 
If, after wretched days, 
115 



THE NEW JERUSALEM, 



I might ^ith listening ears conceive 

Those heavenly songs of praise 
Which to the eternal King are sung 

By happy wights above, 
By saved souls and angels sweet, 

'Wlio love the God of love. 

Oh ! passing happy were my state, 

Might I be worthy found 
To wait upon my God and King, 

His praises there to sound ; 
And to enjoy my Christ above. 

His favor and His grace. 
According to His promise made. 

Which here I interlace : 

" O Father dear," quoth he, " let them 

WTiich Thou hast put of old 
To me, be there where lo ! I am — 

Thy glory to behold ; 
Which I with Thee before the world 

Was made in perfect wise, 
Have had— from whence the fountain great 

Of glory doth arise." 

Again : " If any man will ser^'e 

Thee, let him follow me ; 
For where I am, he there, right sure, 

Then shall my servant be.' 
And still : " If any man loves Me, 

Him loves My Father dear, 
Whom I do love— to him Myself 

In glory will appear." 

Lord, take away my misery. 

That then I may be bold 
With Thee, in Thy Jerusalem, 

Thy glory to behold ; 
And so in Zion see my King, 

My love, my Lord, my all — 
Where now as in a glass I see, 

There face to face I shall. 

Oh ! blessed are the pure in heart — 

Their Sovereign they shall see; 
O ye most happy, heavenly wights, 

\\Tiich of God's household be ! 
O Lord with speed dissolve my bands. 

These gins and fetters strong ; 
For I have dwelt within the tents 

Of Kedar over long. 

Yet search me, Lord, and find me out, 
J^etch me Thy fold unto, 



That all Thy angels may rejoice, 

WTiile all Thy will I do. 
O mother dear ! Jerusalem ! 

TMien shall I come to thee ? 
When shall my sorrows have an end 

Thy joys when shall I see? 

Yet once again I pray Thee, Lord, 

To quit me from all strife, 
That to Thy hill I may attain. 

And dwell there all my life— 
With cherubims and seraphims 

And holy souls of men, 
To sing Thy praise, God of hosts I 

For ever and amen ! 




FOREVER WITH THE LORD. 



0EE^T:R with the 
Lord!" 
So, Jesus, let it be ; 
Life from the dead is 
in that word — 
'Tis immortality. 

Here in the body 
pent, 
Absent from Thee I 
roam; 
Yet nightly pitch my 
moving tent 
A day 's march near- 
er home. 



" Forever with the Lord ! " 

Savior, if 'tis Thy will, 
The promise of that faithful word 

E'en here to me fulfill. 

So when my latest breath 
Shall rend the veil in twain, 

By death I shall escape from deatli. 
And life eternal gain. 

Knowing as I am known. 
How shall I love that word, 

And oft repeat before the throne, 
'* Forever with the Lord ! " 

TAMES MONTGOMERY, 




116 




TPF GFJ^JISTIAJ^ GOUjiTJiy. 



o^ 



3^ 




HE world is very evil ; 
The times are wax- 
ing late : 
Be sober and keep 
vigil; 
The Judge is at the 
gate: 
The Judge that 
comes in mercy, 
The Judge that 
comes with might 
To terminate the 
evil, 
To diadem the right. 
When the just and gentle Monarch 

Shall summon from the tomb. 
Let man, the guilty, tremble, 

For Man, the God, shall doom. 
Arise, arise, good Christian ! 

Let right to wrong succeed ; 
Let penitential sorrow 

To heavenly gladness lead ; 
To the light that hath no evening, 
That knows nor moon nor sun, 
The light so new and golden, 

The light that is but one. 
And when the Sole-Begotten 
Shall render up once more 
The kingdom to the Father 

Whose own it was before,— 
Then glory yet unheard of » 

Shall shed abroad its ray, 
Resolving all enigmas, 

An endless Sabbath-day. 
Then, then from his oppressors 

The Hebrew shall go free. 
And celebrate in triumph 

The year of Jubilee ; 
And the sunlit land that racks not 

Of tempest nor of fight, 
Shall fold within its bosom 

Each happy Israelite : 
The home of fadeless splendor. 
Of flowers that fear no thorn, 



Where they shall dwell as children, 

Who here as exiles mourn. 
Midst power that knows no limit. 

And wisdom free from bound. 
The Beatific vision 

Shall glad the saints around : 
The peace of all the faithful, 

The calm of all the blest, 
Inviolate, unvaried, 

Divinest, sweetest, best. 
Yes, peace ! for war is needless,— 

Yes, calm ! for storm is past, — 
And goal from finish'd labor. 

And anchorage at last. 
That peace — but who may claim it? 

The guileless in their way. 
Who keep the ranks of battle, 

Who mean the thing they say ; 
The peace that is for heaven. 

And shall be for the earth ; 
The palace that re-echoes 

With festal song and mirth; 
The garden, breathing spices, 

The paradise on high ; 
Grace beautified to glory. 

Unceasing minstrelsy. 
There nothing can be feeble. 

There none can ever mourn, 
There nothing is divided. 

There nothing can be torn : 
'Tis fury, ill, and scandal, 

'Tis peaceless peace below ; 
Peace, endless, strifeless, ageless, 

The halls of Sion know : 
O happy, holy portion, 

Refection for the blest; 
True vision of true beauty. 

Sweet cure of all distrest I 
Strive, man, to win that glory ; 

Toil, man, to gain tluit light; 
Send hope before to grasp it, 

Till hope be lost in sight : 
Till Jesus gives the portion 

Those blessed souls to filL 



117 



THE CELESTIAL COUNTRY. 



The insatiate, yet satisfied, 

The full, yet craving still. 
That fulness and that craving 

Alike are free from pain, 
Where thou, midst heavenly citizens, 

A home Hke theirs shalt gain. 
Here is the warlike trumpet ; 

There, hfe set free fi'om sin ; 
When to the last Great Supper 

The faithful shall come in : 
When the heavenly net is laden 

With fishes many and great ; 
So glorious in its fulness, 

Yet so inviolate : 
And the perfect from the shattered, 

And the fall'n from them that stand, 
And the sheep-flock from the goat-herd 

Shall part on either hand ! 
And thes'e shall pass to torment, 

And those shall triumph, then ; 
The new peculiar nation, 

Blest number of blest men. 
Jerusalem demands them : 

They paid the price on earth, 
And now shall reap the harvest 

In blissfulness and mirth : 
The glorious holy people, 

Who evermore rehed 
Upon their Chief and Father, 

The King, the Crucified : 
The sacred ransom"d number 

Now bright with endless sheen, 
Who made the Cross their watchword 

Of Jesus Nazarene : 
Who, fed with heavenly nectar, 

AMiere soul-like odors play, 
Draw out the endless leisure 

Of that long vernal day : 
And through the sacred hhes, 

And flowers on every side, 
The happy dear-bought people 

Go wandering far and wide. 
Their breasts are filled with gladness, 

Their mouths are turned to praise, 
What time, now safe for ever, 

On former sins they gaze : 
The fouler was the error, 

The sadder was the fall, 



The ampler are the praises 

Of Him who pardon 'd all. 
Their one and only anthem, 

The fulness of His love, 
"VVho gives instead of torment 

Eternal joys above ; 
Instead of torment, glory ; 

Instead of death, that life 
Wherewith your happy country, 

True Israelites, is rife. 

Brief life is here our portion. 

Brief sorrow, short-lived care. 
The hfe that knows no ending. 

The tearless hfe, is there. 
happy retribution ! 

Short toil, eternal rest. 
For mortals and for sinners 

A mansion with the blest ! 
That we should look, poor wand'rers, 

To have our home on high ! 
That worms should seek for dwellings 

Beyond the starry sky ! 
To aU one happy guerdon 

Of one celestial grace ; 
For all, for all, who mourn their fall, 

Is one eternal place ; 
And martyrdom hath roses 

Upon that heavenly ground, 
And white and ^drgin hllies 

For virgin-souls abound. 
Their grief is turn'd to pleasure, 

Such pleasure as below 
No human voice can utter, 

No human heart can know ; 
And after fleshly scandal. 

And after this world's night, 
And after storm and whirlwind, 

Is calm, and joy, and light. 
And now we fight the battle. 

But then shall wear the crown 
Of full and everlasting 

And passionless renown ; 
And now we watch and struggle, 

And now we five in hope. 
And Sion in her anguish. 

With Babylon must cope ; 
But He whom now we trust in 



118 



THE CELESTIAL COUNTRY. 



Shall then be seen and known, 
And they that know and see Him 

Shall have Him for their own. 
The miserable pleasures 

Of the body shall decay ; 
The bland and flattering struggles 

Of the flesh shall pass away, 
And none shall there be jealous, 

And none shall there contend ; 
Fraud, clamor, guile — what say I ? 

All ill, all ill shall end ? 
And there is David's Fountain, 

And life in fullest glow. 
And there the light is golden, 

And milk and honey flow; 
The light that hath no evening, 

The health that hath no sore, 
The life that hath no ending. 

But lasteth evermore. 

There Jesus shall embrace us. 

There Jesus be embraced, — 
That spirit's food and sunshine 

Whence earthly love is chased. 
Amidst the happy chorus, 

A place, however low. 
Shall show Him us, and showing, 

Shall satiate evermo. 
By hope we struggle onward. 

While here we must be fed 
By milk, as tender infants, 

But there by Living Bread. 
The night was full of terror, 

The morn is bright with gladness. 
The Cross becomes our harbor. 

And we triumph after sadness. 
And Jesus to his true ones 

Brings trophies fair to see, 
And Jesus shall be loved, and 

Beheld in Galilee; 
Behold, when morn shall waken, 

And shadows shall decay. 
And each true-hearted servant 

Shall shine as doth the day ; 
And every ear shall hear it, — 

Behold thy King's array, 
Behold thy God in beauty. 

The Law hath past away I 



Yes I God my King and Portion, 

In fulness of His grace, 
We then shall see for ever, 

And worship face to face. 
Then Jacob into Israel, 

From earthlier self estranged, 
And Leah into Each el. 

For ever shall be changed 
Then all the halls of Sion 

For aye shall be complete, 
And, in the Land of Beauty, 

All things of Beauty meet. 

For thee, oh dear dear Country! 

Mine eyes their vigils keep ; 
For very love, beholding 

Thy happy name, they weep : 
The mention of thy glory 

Is unction to the breast. 
And medicine in sickness. 

And love, and life, and rest. 
O one, O only Mansion I 

O Paradise of Joy ! 
Where tears are ever banish'd. 

And smiles have no alloy ; 
Beside thy living waters 

All plants are, great and small, 
The cedar of the forest. 

The hyssop of the wall : 
With jaspers glow thy bulwarks ; 

Thy streets with emeralds bkze ; 
The sardius and the topaz 

Unite in thee their rays : 
Thine ageless walls ere bonded 

With amethyst unpriced : 
Thy Saints build up its fabric. 

And the corner-stone is Christ. 
The Cross is all thy splendor. 

The Crucified thy praise : 
His laud and benediction 

Thy ransom'd people raise : 
Jesus, the Gem of Beauty, 

True God and Man, they sing: 
The never-failing Garden, 

The ever-golden Ring: 
The Door, the Pledge, the Husband, 

The Guardian of liis Court: 
The Day-star of Salvation, 



119 



THE CELESTIAL COUNTRY. 



The Porter and the Port. 
Thou hast no shore, fair ocean I 

Thou hast no time, bright day ! 
Dear fountian of refreshment 

To pilgrim far away ! 
Upon the Rock of Ages 

They raise thy holy tower : 
Thine is the victor's laurel, 

And thine the golden dower : 
Thou feel'st in mystic rapture, 

O Bride that know'st no guile, 
The Prince's sweetest kisses. 

The Prince's lovehest smile ; 
Unfading lilies, bracelets 

Of living pearl thine own; 
The Lamb is ever near thee, 

The Bridegroom thine alone ; 
The Crown is He to guerdon, 

The Buckler to protect, 
And He Himself the Mansion, 

And He the Architect. 
The only art thou needest. 

Thanksgiving for thy lot : 
The only joy thou seekest. 

The Life where Death is not: 
And all thine endless leisure 

In sweetest accents sings, 
The ill that was thy merit, — 

The wealth that is thy King's! 

Jerusalem the golden, 

"With milk and honey blest, 
Beneath thy contemplation 

Sink heart and voice oppressed : 
£ know not, oh I know not, 

^^^lat social joys are there; 
What radiancy of glory, 

AMiat light beyond compare' 
And when I fain would sing them. 

My spirit fails and faints ; 
And vamly would it image 

The assembly of the Saints. 
They stand, those halls of Sion, 

Conjubilant with song. 
And bright with many an angel. 

And all the martyr throng : 
The Prince is ever in them : 

The daylight is serene ; 



The pastures of the Blessed 

Are deck'd in glorious sheeru 
There is the Throne of David, — • 

And there, from care released, 
The song of them that triumph, 

The shout of them that feast ; 
And they who, with their Leader, 

Have conquer'd in the fight. 
For ever and for ever 

Are clad in robes of white I 

holy, placid harp-notes 

Of that eternal hymn ! 
sacred, sweet refection, 

And peace of Seraphim I 
thirst for ever ardent. 

Yet evermore content I 
true peculiar vision 

Of God cunctipotent ! 
Ye know the many mansions 

For many a glorious name, 
And divers retributions 

That divers merits claim : 
For midst the constellations 

That deck our earthly sky, 
This star than that is brighter,— 

And so it is on high. 

Jerusalem the glorious ! 

The glory of the Elect I 
dear and future vision 

That eager hearts expect : 
Even now by faith I see thee : 

Even here thy walls discern : 
To thee my thoughts are kindled. 

And strive and pant and yearn: 
Jerusalem the only. 

That look'st h'om heaven below, 
In thee is all my glory ; 

In me is all my woe : 
And though my body may not, 

My spirit seeks thee fain, 
Till flesh and earth return me 

To earth and flesh again. 
Oh none can teU thy bulwarks. 

How gloriously they rise : 
Oh none can tell thy capitals 

Of beautiful de\dce : 
120 



THE CELESTIAL COJNTRY. 



Thy loveliness oppresses 

All human thought and heart : 
And none, O Peace, O Sion, 

Can sing thee as thou art. 
New mansion of new people, 

Whom God's own love and light 
Promote, increase, make holy, 

Identify, unite. 
Thou City of the Angels I 

Thou City of the Lord ! 
Whose everlasting music 

Is the glorious decachord ! 
And there the band of Prophets 

United praise ascribes, 
And there the twelvefold chorus 

Of Irael's ransom'd tribes : 
The lily-beds of virgins, 

The roses' martyr-glow, 
The cohort of the Fathers 

Who kept the faith below. 
And there the Sole-Begotten 

Is Lord in regal state ; 
He, Judah's mystic Lion ; 

He, Lamb Immaculate. 
fields that know no sorrow I 

state that fears no strife ! 

princely bow'rs ! O land of flow*rs! 

realm and home of life I 

Jerusalem, exulting 
On that securest shore, 

1 hope thee, wish thee, sing thee, 
And love thee evermore I 

I ask not for my merit : 

1 seek not to deny 
My merit is destruction, 

A child of wrath am I : ^ 

But yet with Faith I venture 

And Hope upon my way ; 
For those perennial guerdons 

I labor night and day. 
The best and dearest Father 

Who made me, and who saved, 
Bore with me in defilement. 

And from defilement laved ; 
When in His strength I struggle, 

For very joy I leap, 
When in my sin I totter, 



I weep, or try to weep ; 
And grace, sweet grace celestial, 

Shall all its love display, 
And David's royal Fountain 

Purge every sin away. 

O mine, my golden Sion I 

O lovelier far than gold I 
With laurel-girt battalions, 

And safe victorious fold ; 
O sweet and blessed country, 

Shall I ever see thy face ? 

sweet and blessed country. 
Shall I ever win thy grace ? 

1 have the hope within me 
To comfort and to bless ! 

Shall I ever win the prize itself? 
Oh, tell me, tell me, Yes 1 

Exult, dust and ashes ! 

The Lord shall be thy part; 
His only. His for ever. 

Thou shalt be, and thou art I 
Exult, O dust and ashes ! 

The Lord shall be thy part ; 
His only. His forever. 

Thou shalt be, and thou art; 

BERNARD OF CLUNV, 

(Translation of john mason neale.) 



HEAVEN A CITY. 



A CITY never built with bands, nor 
hoary with the years of time ; a city 
whose inhabitants no census has 
numbered; a city through whose 
streets rush no tides of business, nor nod- 
ding hearse creeps slowly with its burden 
to the tomb ; a city without griefs or 
graves, without sins or sorrows, without 
births or burials, without marriages or 
mournings ; a city which glories in having 
Jesus for its king, angels for its guards, 
saints for citizens ; whose walls are salva- 
tion, and whose gates are praise. 

THOMAS GUTHRIE, 



121 



THE LAND OF BEULAH. 



GLORIOUS land of heavenly light, 
Where walk the ransomed, clothed in 
white. 
On hills of myrrh, through pastures green, 
No curse, no cloud upon the scene ! 

Land where the crystal river glides, 
And fruits immortal deck its sides ; 
O land of rest in Eden's bowers, 
No dreary days, no weary hours ! 

No nights of unavailing grief, 
Nor crying which brings no relief; 
For God shall wipe away all tears, 
And into the past are passed our fears 

Beulah, if e'er my weary feet 
Shall press thy blissful shore, 
And tread each shining, golden street, 
To go out thence no more, 



What shall I care for all the way 

That led to thee at last — 

For every dark, despairing day, 

For ever, ever past ? 

If e'er the loved of earthly years 
Shall welcome me to thee, 
What shall I care for all these tears 
Oft flowing bitterly? 

If I may stand before His throne, 
And look upon His face. 
What shall I care that oft, alone, 
Like Him, I ran my race ? 

Safe on thy ever blissful plains. 
My heart's own treasure gathered there ; 
Farewell for ever, sins and pains, 
Farewell, bereavement, sorrow, care ! 

C. HUNTINGTON. 



BEAUTIFUL HEAVEN. 



ATTRACTIONS OF HEAVEN. 



)EAUTIFUL Heaven, blissful abode, 
Evergreen fields in the city of God ; 
The gate ajar by faith I see, 
And the blessed Saviour that died for me. 

Beautiful fields, ever green, 
With nothing but the vail between. 
When life is spent and the vail is rent. 
Our vision bright shall behold the sight. 

The jasper walls, the streets of gold, 
The Lamb of God, the Shepherd's fold. 
The saint's sweet rest, 
In the land of the blest. 

My soul in its vision would fain take its flight, 
And soar to that beautiful land of light. 
Away to that blissful home on high. 
Where we shall live to love and never die. 

And there, where the white-robed angels are. 
Within the gate that's left ajar, 
Would seek to dwell in the land of the blest. 
Forever with God's saints at rest. 

Oh ! beautiful home, sweet Eden land. 
No storms ever beat on thy glittering strand ; 
! my dear Saviour, fain would I flee, 
And be forever at rest with thee. 

DELIA E. WALKER. 



THOUGH earth has fully many a beauti- 
ful spot, 
As a poet or painter might show. 

Yet more lovely and beautiful, holy and 
bright. 
To the hopes of the heart and the spirit's glad 

sight. 
Is the land that no mortal may know. 
O! who but must pine in this dark vale of 

tears. 
From its clouds and its shadows to go, 
To walk in the light of the glory above. 
And to share in the peace, and the joy, and 

love. 
Of the land that no mortal may know ! 
There the crystalline stream, bursting forth 

from the throne. 
Flows on, and forever will flow ; 
Its waves as they roll are with melody rife. 
And its waters are sparkling with beauty and 

hfe. 
In the land which no mortal may know. 
And there on its margin, with leaves ever 

green. 
With its fruits healing sickness and woe. 
The fair tree of life, in its glory and pride. 
Is fed by that deep, inexhaustible tide 
Of the land which no mortal may know. 

BERNARD BARTON. 



122 



^r-^ 



.-Z'-i:^ 



-*H 



ENTERING HEAVEN, 



^^ss»^#^ 




=^^ 



ID you 
ever try 
to imagine 
the soul's 
impres- 
s i o n s 
when it 
first enters 
heaven? 
.^^^ I remem- 
*^ b e r d i s- 

tinctly my impression when entering for 
the first time the city of New York. It 
was on the evening of a beautiful May- 
day, The soft strains of music from the 
band which had accompanied us on our 
journey were wafted out on the evening 
air, and fell sweetly on many a listening 
ear. The sun was just setting. His de- 
parting rays hung lingeringly upon the 
distant hill-tops, as if loath to bid the 
city adieu. 

The noble steamer which had borne us 
down the Hudson was rounding to at the 
pier. I had heard and thought much 
about this great city, of its bustling throng, 
its crowded Broadway, its shaded avenues, 
its enchanting parks, its stately mansions, 
and magnificent churches ; and now it 
lies just before me in all its reality. There 
were its forests of ship masts, its domes 
and lofty spires glittering in the evening 
sunlight. I could hear the hum of voices, 
the roll of wheels, and the tramp of hur- 
rying footsteps, while from a passing 
band there came notes of sweetest music. 
In a few moments I was to mingle with 
that human throng, and look with my 
own eyes upon the wonders of the great 
metropolis. I shall never forget the im- 
pressions of that hour. 



If earthly scenes so impress us, how 
then must it be with the saint when first 
entering the great metropolis of heaven ? 
The old ship upon which he has crossed 
the swelling sea is just gliding into the 
quiet harbor, and rounding to at the 
heavenly pier. The eternal city is just 
before him ; the sunlight of glory floods 
all its streets, and bathes its " many man- 
sions '' and beautiful land scapes in mellow 
splendor. The God-built stories of the 
New Jerusalem rise before him in all 
their matchless grandeur. He sees the 
golden streets, th'e gates of pearl, the sea 
of glass, the river of life, and the throne 
of God. 

The song of angels mingling with the 
harps of heaven now fall upon his ear. 
Never has he heard such music. He may 
have heard the loud swell of the rich- 
toned organ, and the majestic burst of 
praise which has gone up from a thousand 
well-trained voices. But now, when he 
hears even ihQ first notes of the ransomed 
throng, the thoughts of all earthly music 
are forgotten. John says, "I heard a 
great voice of much people in heaven say- 
ing. Alleluia ! Salvation, and glory, and 
honor, and power, unto the Lord our 
God. And I heard as it were tlie voice 
of a great multitude, and as the voice of 
many waters, and as the voice of mighty 
thunderings, saying Alleluia, for the Lord 
God omnipotent reigneth." As this mighty 
chorus comes swelling up the vales, trem- 
bling along the hills, and echoing over 
the plains, his rapt spirit is filled with an 
intensity of bliss known only to heavenly- 
hearts. 

Friends who had preceded him to glory 
now meet him. Angels come and bid 



123 



ENTERING HEAVEN. 



him welcome to the skies, while those 
who had borne him from earth to his 
home in heaven lead him to the Lamb. 
He sees now, not '' through a glass dark- 
ly," but face to face. He sees the Saviour 
" as He is." The vail has been removed, 
and he looks with undimmed vision upon 
the " King in His beauty." 

He stands transfixed, and gazes with 
mute and inexpressible wonder. Gushing 
streams of bliss come pouring in upon 
him, flooding every avenue of his wonder- 
stricken soul. The Saviour, rising, ad- 
dresses him, saying, " Well done, good 
and faithful servant," and then places a 
crown upon his head. 

O, bliss of bliss! O, joys of joys! 
Heaven itself has no language to express 
the rapture which a blood-washed soul 
will experience when Jesus shall place 
the crown of life upon its brow and a harp 
within its hand. 

See him now as the Lamb leads him 
out " into green pastures, and beside the 
still waters." He stands upon the banks 
of the crystal stream which flows from 
the throne of God ; as he gazes upon its 
placid surface, the voicings and harpings 
of saints and angels come trembling along 
the shore. Their sweet vibrations strike 
every chord of his immortal heart, tuning 
it to sing in unison with the heavenly 
choir, when for the fird time, he joins 
with the blood-washed throng in singing, 
" Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to 
receive power, and riches, and wisdom, 
and strength and honor, and glory and 
blessing. Glory and honor, and power 
be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, 
and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." 

Surely one such moment of bliss would 
more than balance all the woes and sor- 
rows of earth. It is more than language 
can express or imagination conceive. 
"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither 



have entered into the heart of man the 
things which God hath prepared for them 
that love Him." I wait in joyous hope 
to see the day that " crowns me at His 
side." I long to feel the unutterable bliss ; 
to experience the consciousness of the first 
full draught from the fountain of immor- 
tality. 




HOME IN HEAVEN. 



HOME in heaven ! What 

a joyful thought, 
As the poor man toils in 

his weary lot ! 
His heart opprest, and 

with anguish driven 
iFrom his home below, to 

his home in heaven. 



A home in heaven ! As the sufferer lies 
On his bed of pain, and uplifts his eyes 
To that bright home ; what a joy is given, 
With the blessed thought of his home in 
heaven. 

A home in heaven ! When our pleasures fade, 
And our wealth and fame in the dust are laid, 
And strength decays, and our health is riven. 
We are happy still with our home in heaven. 

A home in heaven! When the faint heart 

bleeds, 
By the Spirit's stroke, for its evil deeds ; 
Oh ! then what bliss in that heart forgiven, 
Does the hope inspire of a home in heaven. 

A home in heaven ! When our friends are fled 
To the cheerless gloom of the mouldering dead; 
We wait in hope on the promise given; 
We will meet up there in our home in heaven. 

A home in heaven ! ^\Tien the wheel is broke, 
And the golden bowl by the terror-stroke; 
When hfe's bright sun sinks in death's dark 

even. 
We will then fly up to our home in heaven. 

Our home in heaven ! Oh, the glorious home, 
And the Spirit, joined with the bride, says 

"Come!" 
Come, seek His face, and your sins forgiven, 
And rejoice in hope of your home in heaven. 

WILLIAM HUNTER. 



124 





ILL any soul that 
reaches Heaven feel 
strange there ? Will 
it seem a foreign 
country? Will all 
its sights, and 
sounds, and sugges- 
tions be totally un- 
familiar? Will they 
make no respon- 
sive note on any 
chord of the harp 
of memory? Will 
they shed no ray of light on the lens of 
hope ? There are many of us who are 
looking forward to a residence in Heaven. 
Will it be more than a residence ? Will it 
be a home ? We know the difference be- 
tween the two when apphed to places 
upon earth. There are many kinds of 
residences ; there is but one home. A 
lunatic asylum, a penitentiary, the place 
wher£ we must live, but do not want to 
live, is a residence. The only real home 
a man has upon earth is the spot in which 
he would rather be than in any other. 
The place in which he gets most rest, 
most comfort, most solace, most satisfac- 
tion to every craving of his nature — that 
is home. How do we look forward to- 
ward Heaven ? Is it simply the termina- 
tion of the journey, where, in the natural 
course of things, the pilgrimage ceases ? 
Such a state of affairs may occur to a 
man who has gone from his home, and 
whose business or duty has taken him 
across the ocean to a foreign port. There 
he may have to stay all the days of his 
life, and behind him leave wife and chil- 
dren, father and mother. He looks for- 
ward with interest to his arrival. He 



would rather be there than on the stormy 
ocean. But it is not home. Now, how 
do we feel toward Heaven ? Is it simply 
the end of the road we must travel as 
Christians, and which we must terminate 
somewhere, sometime ; or have we long- 
ings for it ? Does it come into our dreams ? 
Do thoughts of it often lift our souls as 
the tides lift up the seas ? Do we feel that 
every other residence is a tent, but heaven 
is our mansion ; that we go to every other 
place because we must^ but are stretching 
ourselves to be in heaven because we 
would? Are we heavenly-minded and 
heavenly-hearted? If so, we shall be at 
home in Heaven. It may be so sweet, so 
delicious, so satisfactory, so fulfilling, as 
to come in sudden and sublime contrast 
with all our previous experience. In this 
sense it may, for a brief season, be start- 
ling and somewhat strange ; but if we 
have been spiritually-minded upon earth, 
each new moment of heaven will bring 
us the fulfillment of some hope, or the 
completion, in shouts of laughter, of some 
song which we had begun upon earth, 
and which had been drowned in sobs. 
It will be the being " forever with the 
Lord " that will make our heaven ever- 
lasting. 

"Forever with the Lord?'' Why not 
now with the Lord ? Is not our present 
life a part of " forever? " If now with the 
Lord — if our communion be with Him — 
if we are learning His ways and walking 
in His companionship here, and are to be 
learning His ways and walking in His 
companionship in heaven, why should 
we not be at home in heaven? 

The angels come down to earth. They 
have their mission of ministry. Their 



125 



^> L 



AT HOME IN HE A VEN. 

duties probably take them, sometimes, heaven, oh ! surely there the good angels 

into places where they feel very strange ; must feel at home. 

but there must be other spots amid the How blessed is the vfork of the angels 

•circumstances of which even angels must and the men who are striving more and 

feel very much at home. Where a family more to make earth like heaven, so that 

is consecrated to God — where perfect love the denizens of the one shall be the citi- 

prevails — where Jesus reigns — where the zens of the other. 

Father's will is done in earth as it is in charles f. deems, d. d. 



t-'^"^'^ HEAVE 



H B me now, 

^^^ This beautiful sunrise that dawns on 

my soul, 
While faint and far off land and sea lie 
below, 
And under my feet the huge golden clouds 
roll? 

To what mighty king doth this city belong, 
With its rich jeweled shrines, and its gar- 
dens of flowers, 
With its breaths of sweet incense, its measures 
of song, 
And the light that is gilding its numberless 
towers ? 



H, what is this splendor that beams on From that hour they would cease to be able 

to sin. 
And earth would be heaven ; for heaven i? 
love. 

But words may not tell of the vision of peace; 

With its worshipful seeming, its marvelou? 

fires ; 

Where the soul is at large, where its sorrow? 

all cease. 

And the gift has outbidden its boldest desires. 

No sickness is here, no bleak, bitter cold, 
No hunger, debt, prison, or weariful toil ; 

No robbers to rifle our treasures of gold, 
No rust to corrupt, and no canker to spoil. 



^ . ^ ,, ^ ^, ^ Ti , • 1 1 ^y Crod ! and it was but a short hour ago, 

See I forth from the gates, like a bridal rri, 4. t i ^^ ^ c \. ^^ • 

^ ' That I lay on a bed of unbearable pams ; 



All was cheerless around me, all weeping and 
woe; 
Now the wailing is changed to angelical 
strains. 



array, 
Come the princes of heaven, how bravely 
they shine ! 
*Tis to welcome the stranger, to show me the 
way. 
And to tell me that all I see round me is Because I served Thee, were life's pleasures 

all lost ? 
Was it gloom, pain, or blood, that won 
heaven for me ? 
Oh no ! one enjoyment alone could life boast. 
And that dearest Lord ! was my serv^ice ol 
Thee. 



mine. 

There are millions of saints in their ranks 
and degrees. 
And each with a beauty and crown of his 
own; 
And there, far outnumbering the sands of 
the sea, 
The nine rings of angels encircle the throne. 



I had hardly to give ; 'twas enough to receive, 
Only not to impede the sweet grace from 
above ; 

And oh, if the exiles of earth could but And, this first hour in heaven, I can hardlj 
-vsrin believe, 

One sight of the beauty of Jesus above, In so great a reward for so little a love. 

F. W. FABER, D. D» 

126 



WINTER ^^ OF LIFE. 



A Good Old Age .... 
A Home in Heaven . . . . 

A Little While 

An Old Man's Idyl .... 

An Old Man's Love Song 

An Old Man's Valentine . 

An Old Pilgrim at his Journey's End 

Approach of Winter .... 

A Prayer for Longer Life 

A Prayer for the Use of an Aged Person 

A Prayer in Old Age 

A Prayer on Preparation for Death 

A Story for Grandfather 

At Evening Time it Shall be Light . 

At Home in Heaven . . . . 

Attractions of Heaven 

Aunt Kindly 



Beautiful Heaven 
Beauty of Old Age . 
Be Kind Unto the Old 
B^ys and Girls 

Cicero's Essay on Old Age 
Companions 



Danger of Backsliding in Old Age . 
" Die Liebe Wintert Nicht" . 
Dreaming at Fourscore . 

Entering Heaven .... 

Evening Often Pleasanter than Morning 
Everlasing Youth .... 
Every Year. .... 

Finish Thy Work .... 
Forever With The Lord . ' . 

Friendships in Heaven 



Gain of Dying .... 
God has Led Me all These Years 
Going Out and Coming In . 
Grandfather's Reverie 
Grandmother — A Portrait 
Grandmother's Patchwork . 
Granny's Eyes . . . 

Growing Giay .... 
Growing 01(J , 



I9»45 
124 

97 
66 

25 
68 

95 
47 
86 
84 
87 
88 

75 

91 

125 

122 

122 

46 
46 
68 

35 
21 

85 
74 

77 

123 

^o 

41 
16 

62 
116 
112 

106 
84 

107 
69 
74 
66 

17 

104 

II 



Happiness of the Life to Come . 

Happy Old Age 

Heaven ..... 

Heaven, a City 

Heaven, a Home 

Heaven Beyond 

Heaven Not Far Away . 

How 10 Grow Old 

I'm Growing Old 
I'm Sixty To-Day 
I Would not Live Alway 

Keep the Heart Young 
Kneeling at the Threshold 

Letter to an Aged Person . 

Life Endeared by Age 

Life's West Windows 

Light at Eventide 

Long Ago . • . . 

May You Die Among Your Kindred 
Moving Onward 
My Fiftieth Birthday 

Nearer Heaven 
Nearing Heaven . . 
Nearing the Gates 
Nearing the Shore 
Nearness of Heaven 
No Night in Heaven 
No Sorrow There 



Old Age .... 

Old Age Coming 

Old Chums .... 

Old Folks at Home 

Our FMlgrimage . . . 

Over the Riv^r 

Paradise .... 

Piety in Old Age 

Prayer against the Fear of Death 

Retrospect and Prospect . 
Reunion ia Heaven « j 



83 

61 

126 

121 

107 

93 

I >6 

10 

6 

51 

96 



98 

80 

48 
52 
94 
19 

105 
69 

44 

59 
109 
108 

94 

100 

60 

60 

8.53 

5 

40 

7S 
54 
12 



45 



"3 

Si 
108 

55 
III 



127 



INDEX. 



Saturday Afternoon 
Sin Fqrgiven in Old Age 



The Boys 

The Celestial Country 

The Circuit Preacher 

The Coming of the Snow 

The Consolation of Age 

The Ever^re^ n of Our Feelings 

The Fast Mail 

The Golden Wedding 

The Good Old Grandmother . 

The f^oary Head a Crown of Glory 

The Happiest Time 

The Land of Beulah . 

The Long ago 

The Lost Babies 

The New Jerus.ilem . 

The Ode of Age . 

The Ode of Change . 

The Ode of Decline 

The Old Folks .... 



58 


The Old Man Dreams ... 5 


7 


82 


The Old Man Goes to School . 


65 




The Old Man's Bible .... 


82 


43 


The Old Man's Funeral . . . , 


105 


117 


The Old Man's Song .... 


7 


Sq 


The Old Wife's Kiss .... 


57 


24 


The One Gray Hair .... 


90 


50 


The Pleasure Voyage .... 


46 


32 


The Reunion . . . , 


109 


67 


The Shore of Eternity 1 . . . 


109 


28,70 


The Sunset Hour of Life . . . , 


45 


73 


The Three Warnings . . - . 


79 


47 


The Worn Wedding Ring . 


73 


63 


Thoughts of Heaven .... 


59.99 


122 


Three- Score-and-Ten 


52 


64 


To Depart and be with Christ, Far Better . 


98 


8 
114 

3 


Together 


29 


We are Growing Old .... 


18 


26 


What Then . . . . , . • , 


97 


34 


Youth Renewed in Age . . • • 


100 



\ 



Whole Number of Pages — 800. 




lit. 



